


The Greater Enemy

by genericfanatic



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: AU, F/M, M/M, altea is a country, childhood friends lance and allura, everyone is human, lotsa arguments and fighting?, unrequited keith/shiro - Freeform, unrequited lance/allura
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-07 09:20:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7709551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genericfanatic/pseuds/genericfanatic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lance is displeased when he finds out his crush and childhood friend is dating Takashi Shirogane</p><p>Keith is displeased when he finds out his foster brother is dating Princess Allura</p><p>Both are equally displeased that this means they end up having to live together.</p><p>So they decide to do something about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hate at first sight

“Boyfriend?” Lance said in shock and disgust.

Allura sighed as she drove the car. “I told you about this last week on our video call. Your mom was cool with it.”

“I was distracted by your beautiful eyes,” Lance smirked.

Allura rolled said eyes. “Uh-huh. Well, his name is Shiro, and he’s really, really nice. You’ll like him!”

It was Lance’s turn to sigh. “It’s not a matter of if I like him or not.” Which, he was sure he wouldn’t. No one was good enough for Allura. Except for himself, but even with all of his greatness, he only BARELY deserved her. “It’s…well, won’t it be awkward? Living with both me and your boyfriend?”

“Wow, you really WEREN’T listening during the video call,” she said, making a turn. He raised an eyebrow and she continued. “It’s not just going to be you and my boyfriend. Shiro has a little brother who’ll be staying with us too. He’s been there a couple of weeks, actually, so he can show you around.” She swallowed, knowing he wasn’t going to like this, but still using her most positive voice. “In fact, you’ll be sharing a room with him!”

Lance gaped at her in horror. “A roommate? Really Allura? So we’ve gone from you and me living comfortably together in domestic bliss, to you, me, and some guy, and some guy’s dweeb brother who’ll probably get his grubby little hands all over my stuff?”

“It’s not going to be that bad, Lance.” She said, frustrated, and…a little sad? Lance wasn’t sure, “Keith, the brother, is about your age. In fact, he’s joining the garrison too! The piloting program, no less! You two will be the best of friends.”

Lance crossed his arms and grumbled to himself. Allura shook her head at him, pulling into her driveway.

Allura’s house was relatively small, but there was no doubt that it was the princess of Altea who lived there. For one, there were the gates. For another, there were Altean flags everywhere with lions roaring across the banner. Beyond that were the perfectly manicured gardens and the repaired house. Still, it wasn’t the mansion that one might expect. Allura liked to still act like a “real person” as it were, driving her own car, fixing her own meals (sometimes) and living in the most spacious 2-bedroom Lance had ever seen. 

The house had been built specifically for her when she had taken up residence away from the castle and taken over running the Voltron training program. Although the actual Paladins lived with her father, King Alfor, at the capitol, the training happened in a facility near the garrison. The garrison trained practically everyone who would one day be traveling the solar system.

Traveling the solar system happened to be Lance’s dream, even if it meant travelling all the way from Florida to Altea, far from his family. Unfortunately, his mother was paranoid, and only let him go on the condition he stayed with someone she trusted. The only person she trusted who was even close to the garrison was Princess Allura, who was willing to put Lance up for a while. Lance had been eager to stay with his childhood friend and long-term crus. Or, head had been, when he thought they would be living ALONE.

Allura helped Lance unload his bags from the car. Well, she took more of them. A lot more. She was weirdly strong. “Shiro,” she called into the house, “I’m back!” 

A man came downstairs. Well, more of a mountain than a man. He wasn’t technically much taller than Lance, but the man was ripped as hell. One look and Lance understood how even Allura, who Lance considered the most attractive person in the universe, could have fallen for him. He still didn’t like it, but he understood. The man smiled at Allura, then turned to Lance. “You must be Lance. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Allura talked about him? Lance almost smiled, before remembering this man was his enemy. Still, to be polite, Lance shook his hand. “Ah,” Lance said, “she hasn’t told me much about you.”

If Shiro recognized the insult, he didn’t show any signs. Instead, he gave Allura a half hug and kiss on the cheek before taking one of the bags from the top of the pile she was lugging. “So, I’m almost done with dinner. Lance, do you want to see your room and unpack now, or after dinner?”

Anything to get away from the schmoozing couple, he thought. “I’ll unpack now.” 

Shiro nodded and stood at the base of the stairs. “Keith? Can you come down for a sec?”

Right. Lance had almost forgotten about the roommate. Whatever image Lance had formed in the minutes between hearing about this Keith and meeting him, it did not match up in the slightest. He was much worse. True, he might have been about Lance’s age, and true, he may be conventionally handsome, but everything from his long hair to his short jacket to his combat boots screamed ‘bad attitude.’ And no, Lance wasn’t biased.

“Keith,” Shiro said, “This is Lance. Why don’t you show him up to your room?”

Keith nodded, then indicated with his head for Lance to follow him. Taking his bag with some of his more personal possessions, Lance followed.

The room was elegant. Or, it would be if it didn’t have Keith’s belongings scattered throughout. It was clearly designed for one person, but as that one person would probably be some kind of dignitary, it was large enough for the second bed that had obviously been added later. “That’s yours,” Keith said, pointing at it.

“Thank you, captain obvious.” Lance said, putting his bag on the bed. First thing to do was take his picture of his family out of the pack and put it on the nightstand. He then began unloading everything else into the drawers. He could feel Keith watching, silently.

Allura broke the tension, coming to drop off the rest of Lance’s belongings. “Dinner will be in 10, boys.” She said, smiling as she left. The room immediately fell back into silence as Lance unpacked.

Lance was getting uncomfortable. His house was always loud. He didn’t like silence. “So,” he said, “You’re Shiro’s brother?”

Keith nodded. “Foster brother. But yeah.” Another moment of silence. “You’re Allura’s…cousin?”

Lance snorted at the idea of being a part of the royal family. Clearly he wasn’t the only one who didn’t listen to Allura. “More like family friend. My dad was a paladin of Voltron, so we visited the palace a lot. I was closer to Allura’s age than most people at the palace, so, we became friends.” Keith nodded as Lance unpacked his clothes. “So, we’re gonna have to talk about some rules.”

Keith’s face crumpled into a frown, “Rules?”

“Yeah, rules.” Lance said. He gestured to the clothes and books scattered about. “For one, maybe discovering the usefulness of a hamper?” he kicked a protein bar wrapper, “or a trash can?”

Keith rolled his eyes. “What, you want me to scrub the floor too?”

“It couldn’t hurt.” Lance said. He wasn’t exactly a neat freak. A little mess was actually expected in a house with 5 kids, but in order to keep it from turning into a disaster zone, cleaning was basically constant.

Keith huffed. He got up and kicked his belongings to his side of the room, creating a stark line between the two halves. “Will that do?”

Lance sighed, “just make sure there’s a path to the door, please.” 

“Fine.” Keith lay back on his bed, and put a pair of headphones on. Even from across the room, Lance could hear the heavy guitar riffs and drums. He grit his teeth, grinding until it hurt. His first day of pursuing his dream was not going as planned.

Lance was about halfway through putting his clothes away before they were called to dinner. “So, Lance,” Shiro said, “Allura says you were the top student in your preliminary school. That’s really impressive.”

Lance nodded, stuffing his face, “yeah. Well, I do what I do. What do you do?”

Again, Shiro blatantly ignored any rudeness. “I’m a student too. For the Voltron program.” 

Lance raised an eyebrow and looked over at Allura. She was dating one of the students at the program? That she ran? Allura sensed what he was curious about and spoke up. “It’s how we met, actually. We got along famously, and, well, I knew I liked him for a while. I was devastated when he applied to get new supervision at the program. I thought he was trying to get away from me! But, it turns out, he just didn’t want to seem improper when he asked me out on a date.”

Shiro smiled at her and kissed her on the cheek. While they both looked away, Lance noticed Keith roll his eyes. So, the little brother wasn’t too fond of the relationship either. He was actually a little offended. Sure, he wasn’t happy about the situation, but literally anyone should be happy to have their brother date Allura.

“So,” Allura said, desperate to start some kind of conversation, “are you two excited for your first day at the garrison?” Keith nodded, eyes fixed on his plate. Lance would not turn down the chance to talk to Allura, though. “I wouldn’t say excited, more like, I’m ready. Ready to ace it like I did prelim school.”

Keith definitely rolled his eyes at that. Lance glared at him. Allura turned to him hesitantly. There was something in her gaze Lance didn’t really recognize. Shiro cleared his throat, and stared Keith down. When Keith noticed, he glued his eyes to his plate. “It’s good you’re so confident, Lance,” Shiro said, “Just don’t get discouraged if you don’t succeed right away. The garrison is much more difficult than prelims.”

“I said I can do it.” Lance didn’t really mean to snap at him, but it sort of spilled out. “I’ll be just fine, thank you very much.” 

There was a sharp jab to his shin that made his eyes water. He looked up to see Allura glaring at him. “I said thank you!” Lance protested. No fair, she hadn’t done anything when Keith was being rude. 

Keith stood up, putting his napkin on the table. Since he hadn’t spoken a word throughout the meal, his plate was scraped clean. “I’m going out for a ride.” He said before he stalked off. Shiro looked like he wanted to call after him, but he let it go.

Lance raised an eyebrow. “Ride?”

Shiro sighed. He suddenly seemed very tired. “He…he has his own motorcycle he brought.”

Lance rolled his eyes. Well, if that didn’t fit perfectly in the image of Keith he had developed. He looked downa t his plate. He still had some food left, but he wasn’t particularly hungry anymore, and he didn’t want to be alone at the table with the happy couple. “You know, I still have some unpacking to do. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Lance—“ Allura called after him, but he was already bolting up the stairs. Faintly, he heard her mutter to Shiro, “well, this is going JUST smoothly.”

He felt bad about making Allura upset. He knew she was doing a lot for him. Still, it wasn’t like this was all his fault. Everything about Keith was terrible.

 

Everything about Lance was just terrible.

Keith had thought living in a princess’ house was bad enough. But his roommate was terrible. For one, he was obnoxious, loudmouthed and arrogant as hell. And he dared tell Keith what he had to do in his own room. Sure he was somewhat handsome, but if it weren’t for Shiro, Keith was pretty sure he’d dropkick this kid. 

It only got worse when they went to the Garrison the next day. First off, they had gone off in a limo, which made Keith more than a bit uncomfortable. And Lance kept making NOISE. He tapped on his legs, humming stupid melodies to himself, popping saliva bubbles in his mouth (disgusting) and when he KNEW it was bothering Keith, ended up poking Keith every few seconds. 

Thankfully, Lance ran off the second the limo stopped. Keith watched him go up to a group of people and just start up a conversation. Keith…wasn’t sure how he did that. Like, yeah, go up and talk to people, but how did Lance not find that…awkward?

Whatever. Keith was just glad to be rid of him. Except he wasn’t. Turns out, seating for their classes was arranged in alphabetical order, putting Kogane next to McClain (where were all the pilots with ‘L’ last names??)

Keith now knew that Lance was a blabbermouth, after he had seen him talking with other friends. But now, sitting next to Keith, he had been struck silent. Keith wasn’t sure how he felt about that. 

The teacher walked into the room, “All right, everyone take out your books, turn to page 307, we’re going through situational problems today.” 

Keith took his book out of his bag along with the all the other students. All of them, except for Lance, who was looking around like a lost puppy.   
Keith smirked to himself as Lance twiddled his thumbs. Lance was sitting at the end of the row, there was no one on his other side. Keith thought he could actually hear Lance swallow his pride. “Hey, could I…could I look on with you?”

Keith raised an eyebrow, debating how petty he should be. He pushed the book so they could both look, although Lance had to reach over to look at it. This was partially a mistake on Keith’s part, as now Lance’s head was in his personal bubble, something he did NOT enjoy, but it did get the effect he desired.

“Mr….McClain, is that it?” The teacher said, staring at Lance in the middle of the room. Lance froze. “Please stand up.” Lance stood. Keith bit his lip, trying not to laugh. “Mr. McClain, do you have your textbook with you?”

Lance cleared his throat, finally quiet. He forced himself to speak, “No sir.” 

The teacher raised an eyebrow and clucked his tongue. “Did you not receive the memo instructing you to bring the book to class?”

Keith could see Lance cringing under the words from the teacher, “No sir. I’ve been traveling for several days to get to Altea. I only arrived yesterday.” 

The teacher looked at his watch. “If you aren’t prepared, I won’t have you sit in on the class. And I don’t allow excuses in my class.” Lance cringed again. “As it is your FIRST day, I will allow some amount of lenience, in that I will not have you come in for detention. However, you will gather your things now and go to the school shops so that you can be prepared for this afternoon’s training drills.”

Lance froze. Keith remembered what he had said yesterday, so confident he would be the best. And being ridiculously rude to Shiro while saying it, no less. Keith smirked as Lance packed up his belongings. Lance met his eyes and for just a moment, they stared at each other. Lance widened his eyes in disgust and stormed out of the classroom. 

Keith thought for a second about what Lance was frowning at him for, before he realized. Lance thought he’d gotten him in trouble on purpose. 

Well….whatever. Keith didn’t care about Lance. He was just…Lance. So. What did it matter?

It mattered quite a bit, as Keith realized at lunch. He grabbed a lunch at the cafeteria and sat down, minding his own business. He looked up and realized Lance was sitting at the table next to him, food already finished and reading the most beaten-up textbook Keith had ever seen. Keith guessed as he hadn’t been to class, Lance had made it to the front of the line for lunch. 

Keith didn’t think about it much more until a group of kids from their class approached. “Hey,” The large boy in front said, “We saw what happened to you in class today. Mr. Montgomery was totally out of line.”

A small (boy?) with glasses nodded, “It’s the first day, sending you out of class was ridiculous. If you need to borrow my notes from the class or anything, feel free.”

Lance smiled up at them. “Thanks. I would actually really appreciate knowing what I missed. Sit down, there’s plenty of room.” Lance grinned a winning smile at them all, “I’m Lance, by the way.”

“Pidge,” 

“Hunk,”

The rest of the students introduced themselves and sat around Lance, easily making conversation. 

Keith tried to put them out of his mind, but as no one sat at his table, it was way too easy to hear their conversation. After a while, he could have sworn he felt a pair of eyes on him. He looked up. In fact there were a couple of pairs, but they all looked away when Keith made eye contact. The conversation had quieted down to harsh whispers, but Keith could see Lance was telling them all something about Keith. Keith heard the words, “his fault” and “on purpose.”

The others at the table looked to Keith in disapproval. Keith swallowed. If that rumor got around, that he had purposefully thrown another student under the bus in class, that was the end of his chances for getting friends.

Well, that was all right, Keith thought. He was alone most of the time. The only person he could stand being around for long was Shiro. It didn’t really matter to him.

Though, if that were true, he thought, why did it hurt when he looked up at Lance laughing and talking with ease with his new friends?


	2. The Agreement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Lance finally find something they agree on. Ish.

“Would you please. For the love of God. And everything holy. Turn. That. Shit. Down.”

Keith glared up at Lance. Staring him straight in the eye, he pressed the ‘volume up’ button twice.

Lance nearly exploded. It had been like this for a full week now. Lance and Keith avoided each other whenever they could, but it was hard when they lived together and sat next to each other in school. Not to mention the ‘bonding time’ Shiro and Allura put them through, insisting they eat breakfast and dinner all together. At school, Lance would be constantly chastised in class, while Keith excelled naturally. Meanwhile, Keith would sit alone, isolated from his fellow students, while Lance was the center of attention.

Still, the real battles happened in their shared room. Neither was willing to cede the room to the other, and so they both suffered each other’s presence. 

Lance chewed on the inside of his cheek, the goddamn screeching music grating against the inside of his skull. Keith went back to his studying. Lance huffed, putting his own textbook down and taking out his own personal radio device. Turning it up to full volume, he played his favorite peppy Spanish pop music. 

Keith looked up from his studies, glaring over at Lance. Fighting a raging headache, Lance settled back on the bed and started reading from his book. Keith snarled at him, got up off his bed, and turned Lance’s music off himself. “Hey!” Lance shouted at him. He reached to turn it back on, but Keith snatched it out of his hands. 

Keith shrugged and threw it in a pile of his belongings. Lance snarled as Keith made it back to his bed. At first, Keith though Lance was going to charge him, but then, Lance dove for Keith’s music player. “Hey!” Keith shouted, grabbing at Lance’s hands, pulling him away.

Before long, they were rolling on Keith’s side of the floor. Their fights had as of yet not gotten physical, and they still weren’t throwing punches, but it was getting awfully close as Lance reached for Keith’s music player and Keith kept pushing him back. 

“Fuck off!” Lance shouted at Keith, “if you get to turn off my music, I get to turn off yours!” 

“I need that music!” Keith said, trying to put Lance in a headlock, “it helps me concentrate!”

Then wear your goddamn headphones for fuck’s sake!” Lance broke Keith’s grip for the moment, but before he could get to the music player, Keith grabbed his legs and pulled him back.

“I would!” Keith said, “If someone hadn’t fucking stolen them!” Keith batted Lance’s hands away as he tried to break Keith’s grip on his legs.

“I didn’t take them!” Lance shouted, “They probably have your greasy hairs all over them!” 

They both froze as the music suddenly stopped. Looking up, Shiro stood above them, arms crossed and intimidating. 

Like he had been shocked, Keith jumped off of Lance and stood up straight. Lance stood up more slowly, and looked far less guiltily at Shiro. “You two have been shaking the whole damn house.” He said, staring the both of them down. “Allura has been kind enough to let all of us stay in her house, and it is ridiculously disrespectful of both of you to be acting like children.” They both turned away from him, swallowing protests. “Now, if you two can’t get along, you had better pretend well enough or you had better believe there will be consequences.”

Lance muttered something under his breath. “What was that?” Shiro demanded.

Lance stared him dead in the eye and said, “you can’t punish me. You’re not my dad.”

Keith looked more insulted than Shiro, but Shiro put a hand up to stop him from doing anything drastic. Shiro swallowed. “No, I’m not. But you can bet that if you try anything, Allura can call your mother at the drop of a hat.”

Lance looked like he wanted to say a great deal more, but with his mother’s name invoked, he fell silent. Satisfied, Shiro said, “Dinner will be in a half hour. Get back to your studying.”

Shiro closed the door behind him, and the boys retreated back to their beds. “It’s his damn fault anyway,” Lance said. He had seemed to be holding that in for quite a while.

“Don’t blame Shiro for your fucking mistakes,” Keith snapped, picking up his study materials.

Lance rolled his eyes. “Aww, did I hurt dear darling big brother’s feelings?” Keith rolled his eyes this time, trying to ignore him. “It IS his fault. If he hadn’t seduced Allura I’de be living here alone with her, having the time of my life.”

Keith grimaced. “It’s not exactly like I’m pleased to be living here either.” He said, “I’d rather be living somewhere with just Shiro, like I thought we were supposed to. But it’s not like I have anywhere else to go without him.”

“Why don’t you apply to get a dorm at the garrison?” Lance asked.

Keith winced. To get a dorm, you needed a roommate, and if he was bad at making friends before, it was impossible now that the whole school hated him. “Why don’t you?”

Lance shook his head. “Mom won’t let me live with anyone she doesn’t know.” Keith snorted, muttering something under his breath about ‘mama’s boy.’ Lance glared. “Laugh it up now, because that means we’re stuck with each other as long as…” Lance trailed off and his eye glazed over for a moment. Then, he stood straight up, causing Keith to jump. “That’s it!” He said.

Keith raised an eyebrow, wondering if his roommate had finally lost it. “Uhh…what’s it?”

For the first time, Lance smiled at Keith. Keith blinked in surprise. He…actually had a nice smile. “It’s how we can get out of this. If Shiro and Allura break up, Shiro will move out, and he’ll take your mulleted ass with him!” 

Keith frowned at him. “I…I guess. But what makes you think they’ll break up?”

Lance’s smirk widened. “WE are going to break them up.”

Keith blinked. “What?” He looked between Lance and the door Shiro had closed. “WHAT?! You can’t be serious. Of all the plans, that is the most ridiculous—“

“Brilliant plan ever!” Lance said. “C’mon, I’ve seen you. You don’t think they’re right for each other. We’ll just be helping them realize it.”

Keith scowled. “I don’t go messing in my brother’s love life like that. And aren’t you not supposed to mess with your friend?”

Lance rolled his eyes. “Allura is distracted by the giant muscles and the weird Dad vibe Shiro’s got going on. She’s a princess, she clearly deserves better.” Keith was once again offended on Shiro’s behalf. Lance cut him off before he could say anything. “Fine. Fine, we’ll do nothing. Shiro and Allura will stay together forever, get married, and the two of us will live here in this room for the rest of our garrison days.”

Keith pursed his lips, thinking. He could barely survive a week with Lance, several years was unthinkable. And…besides, he really didn’t think Shiro and Allura were right for each other. So, it would be like he was doing a favor for Shiro, in the long run, at least. 

Some part of him knew he was lying to himself, but it didn’t stop him from nodding his head. Lance offered up a hand, and Keith shook it.

And so the agreement was born. 

 

“You’re doing WHAT?” Hunk asked him. He, Lance, and Pidge had taken a night off from studying to go to the student’s ‘bar’ at Lance’s request. It only served alcohol to the older students (the drinking age in Altea was 18) but there were plenty of non-alcoholic drinks for the younger students. It just meant that they all had to wear dorky wristbands.

Lance sighed. “I told you. I have teamed up with my mortal enemy for the sake of a greater enemy.”

Hunk was still confused. “Wait…so…is Shiro the greater enemy?” Pidge rolled their eyes and did their best to ignore them. The three had become fast friends, but they already knew Lance well enough to be a bit exasperated with his antics.

Lance shook his head. ”No, no. It’s Shiro’s relationship with Allura that’s the enemy.”

“Is Shiro really so bad?” Hunk asked as Pidge ordered a second drink. 

Lance shrugged. “I mean, he’s okay, I guess. As a person. But he’s no good for Allura at all.”

“Why?” Hunk asked innocently.

It was a simple question, but it stumped Lance. As far as he could tell, Shiro had been perfectly respectful to Allura. He had tried to avoid the couple, so he wasn’t sure how they interacted together. “Because,” Lance said, fumbling for words, “because she’s a Princess. You have to be more than ‘alright’ to date a PRINCESS.”

“What do you have to be, then?” Pidge asked, finally looking up from their drink.

“Well,” Lance said, “you have to be more like me!” At that, Pidge and Hunk burst out laughing. Lance frowned at them, mortally offended. “Hey!” he said, “I’ll have you know, I’m perfectly good boyfriend material.”

They did not stop chuckling. “Sure, sure you are, buddy.” Hunk said, patting his arm. “You’re just…I don’t know the right word…you’re—“

“A giant dork?” Pidge supplied.

Lance grumbled. “Some girls like dorks.” Pidge and Hunk both laughed again. “Some friends you are.”

He turned away from them just in time to see Keith and Shiro enter the bar. Good, Lance was honestly worried Keith wouldn’t hold up his end of the bargain. They had argued a great deal about how to go about their break-up plan, finally deciding that making Allura jealous was the way to go.

“All right. Target located.” Lance said, quickly chugging his drink.

Pidge and Hunk looked over to where Lance was looking. “Wait,” Pidge said, “Shiro is Takashi Shirogane?”

“You know him?” Lance asked.

Pidge nodded, “He’s in my brother’s class. He’s apparently, like, really good. Like ridiculously good. And one of the nicest people and can basically bench press anything, and—“

“Okay, okay, I get the picture,” Lance said. “I’m going in.”

“And, what’s your plan here?” Hunk asked.

Lance sighs, “I’m going to humiliate myself.” He said.

He walked away from his friends, approaching a group of girls clearly there for a fun night out. “Hey, nyma.” He said to one of them.

The blonde girls face fell upon seeing him. “Lance, hi.” She said, “I-um..I’m sorry about last Wednesday.”

Despite his undying love for Allura, Lance still flirted with all the girls (and a few guys) in their class. The one and only person who had reciprocated had been Nyma, who agreed to go on a date with him last Wednesday. Of course, that had turned out to be a ploy to make her boyfriend, Rolo, jealous. It had worked, and the two got back together…in the middle of her date with Lance.

Lance sighed, trying not to flinch at the memory, “You know, I understand. I’ve actually gotten over it.” He hadn’t. “But I did think of a way for you to make up for it.”

Nyma raised an eyebrow at him. “Oh? What might that be?”

Lance smiled. “Don’t worry, you’ll like it.”

A minute later, Lance was sitting just across the room from where Keith and Shiro wer sitting. He gave a thumbs up to Nyma, who nodded and approached Shiro. “Hello handsome.” She said, before grabbing him by the shirt and kissing him full on the mouth. 

Quickly, Lance took a picture, just in time before Shiro pushed her away. “I’m…very flattered, miss.” He said, “But I’m actually seeing someone.”

Nyma shrugged. “Worth it,” she muttered, walking away. 

Lance quickly cropped Keith out of the photo and texted it to Allura, with the caption ‘saw this, thought you’d want to know.’

He looked up to see Shiro running a stressed hand through his hair, and Keith looking at Lance, eyebrow raised. Lance gave him a thumbs up. “And now, we wait,” he muttered to himself and went to go back with Pidge and Hunk.

He ordered himself a victory smoothie and chatted amicably for a few minutes, losing track of Keith and Shiro. Finally, he felt his phone vibrate. It was a text message from Allura! “Shiro texted me right after it happened, it was apparently a misunderstanding. Thanks for looking out for me, though! :-)” 

Lance sulked. And ordered himself a failure smoothie. Don’t judge, the served good smoothies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shiro and Allura's relationship is too stable for yoouuuuu  
> I swear Keith and Lance get along by the end! well, more than...eh, I'll just let you read it.   
> Anyway, next chapter's already started, it'll be up at the latest next week.


	3. Attempt #2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The game that ruins friendships.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be combined with the next chapter, but it seemed to be going longer than expected, so I'm just going to divide the two.

Lance sighed. “This isn’t going to work.” He muttered. 

“It’s better than your idea,” Keith said. He nodded towards the kitchen and Lance reluctantly walked in.

“Hey Allura,” he said. Allura was chopping vegetables. She wasn’t particularly good at cooking, but she was trying her best. “Do you want help with that?”

“Please,” she said, ceding the knife to him. “I was so eager to split cooking duties between me and Shiro at first. But to be honest, I’ve mostly been having Coran cook something and bring it over on my nights.”

Lance smirked. Coran was Allura’s assistant. “I thought I tasted some Coran-style taste in our food. So, where is he off to tonight?”

“He’s been getting some preparations for the festival in a few days. The mayor likes having the princess make an appearance, you know, celebrating royalty and all that.” She sighed. “It’s all lovely, but a bit more stressful than I prefer.”

Lance nodded, using all the cooking knowledge his mother had granted him to fix the awful cutting job Allura had done on the vegetables. “You love being a princess, don’t lie to me.”

She sighed and looked around her house, “it has it’s perks.” Lance laughed, “I can still kick your ass.”

Lance held up his hands in fake surrender. “Yes princess. Whatever you say.” They both chuckled and he went back to chopping the veggies. “I actually came to ask you something.”

“Oh?” Allura asked, grabbing one of the pieces of chopped carrots and plopping it in her mouth. “Shoot.”

“I was wondering if after dinner tonight you’d want to have a game night. You know, like we used to when we were little. We could even invite Keith and Shiro if you wanted.”

Allura brightened, “that’s a marvelous idea! We can absolutely have a game night. What games did you have in mind?”

Here was the kicker. “I was thinking…monopoly.”

Allura froze. “I...I don’t know, Lance.” She swallowed. “I haven’t played since…the incident.” 

An interesting fact about the palace of Altea was that the game of monopoly was banned on the premise by King Alfor himself. This was due to an…incident that happened when Allura was 12 and Lance was 8. Lance was still sworn to secrecy on some details, but it boiled down to Allura’s over-competitive nature and a rather ill-timed state dinner. Relations with Emperor Zarkon had never recovered.

Lance had told these declassified points to Keith as they were brainstorming, trying to come up with flaws in their favorite people they could exploit and get them to break up.

Lance smiled, innocently. “That was years ago, Allura. You’re a responsible adult now, with a job, and there aren’t any Galrans around.”

Allura bit her lip. He knew he had her now. “Well, all right. You’re right. I’m sure it will be fine.”

Lance nodded. “Excellent.” He handed her the cut vegetables to put in…he was pretty sure it was a stew. Behind her, he saw Keith give him a thumbs up, having heard their plan was on track.

Unfortunately, Allura followed his line of sight and saw Keith. Surprised, he quickly left before she got suspicious. Lance held his breath, preparing any number of excuses to throw Allura off their scent. Instead, though, she looked at him almost sad. “Lance, you spend a lot of time with Keith, right?”

Lance raised an eyebrow at her. “I mean, yeah. You made us roommates, so…”

Allura sighed, “It’s just, I know he’s close with Shiro. His opinion means a lot to Shiro. And it just seems he doesn’t really approve of me.”

Well, that was an understatement. It was more like Keith was conspiring to ruin her relationship with Shiro, with Lance as his accomplice. Lance felt guilty. “Well, he’s a dick. Don’t pay him any attention.”

Allura shrugged. “I mean, I normally would. But he’s Shiro’s brother. I don’t want Shiro to have to choose between us. I certainly wouldn’t make him, but…” She swallowed, “I have this nagging suspicion if he had to, Shiro would choose Keith. She stirred the stew sadly. “I mean, not that that’s a bad thing, they’re family, I understand I just…” She sighed, unable to find the words.

Lance bit his lip. That gave him an idea. A simpler idea than tricking her friend or trying to make her jealous. If he just told Keith to talk to Shiro…Shiro might actually break up with Allura for Keith’s sake. That was what Allura feared. And…it would break her.

Instead, he patted her on the back. “You’re really not used to people not liking you, are you?” She shrugged. “Listen, don’t worry about Keith. Some people you just can’t make like you, even if you’re the most beautiful princess that has ever existed.”

She smirked. His flirting used to annoy her to no end, but now it was practically friendly banter. “Thanks Lance. I think I can take it from here. Hopefully.”

Dinner that evening was…not great. Lance and Shiro both ate as much as they could stomach, giving Allura reassuring smiles and words like “it’s good, really.” Keith had two bites and declared himself full. 

Then, Lance took out the game of monopoly. Shiro smiled, “Wow, I haven’t played this game in forever!” he said. 

Lance set up the game board, “Allura and I used to play all kinds of board games growing up. She once threatened to have me exiled when I won.”

Allura gave him a friendly punch on the shoulder that was just a little too hard, and she glared at him as she nervously giggled, “Oh, I didn’t mean it,” Her mouth said, while her eyes said ‘shut up.’

Lance handed Keith the cards to shuffle. He nodded at Keith, who very carefully mixed the cards together. Or, didn’t, rather. He had already organized the cards into the perfect organization before the game had started, but he was decent enough at sleight of hand to make it seem like he’d shuffled. 

Lance meanwhile looked at Shiro and Allura. They were…making weird facial expressions at each other. It was like they were talking to each other silently. He had seen other couples do similar things. His parents, for example…that was a train of thought he didn’t want to go down. 

“Does anyone have any color or player piece preferences?” Lance asked. “Allura, I assume you want yellow.”

“And the car, please.” Allura said.

Keith frowned, “I usually play with the car.” Shiro frowned at him, but it was Lance who kicked him, slowly shaking his head. He remembered what Allura had told him earlier about Keith disapproving of her, and while he wanted them to break up, he wasn’t going to do it by hurting Allura. Well. Okay, he hadn’t really thought that part through. 

Lance raised an eyebrow at Keith, trying to project thoughts to him, ‘remember the plan,’ he thought. He was pretty sure Keith got the message, as he was about to take the shoe, when Allura said, “Oh! No, that’s all right, here, have the car. I’ll take the shoe.”

She handed him the piece. Lance nearly gaped. She must really want his approval, she had once gotten into an actual fight with him over the car. 

In the end, Lance took the top hat, and Shiro took the dog. And then the games began. 

It started with a nervous chuckle as Shiro got a lucky card. “Beginner’s luck,” he said. 

“But you’ve played before,” Lance said. Allura might have told him off for that, if she wasn’t silently fuming. She had already been sent to jail once, but she didn’t say anything about it. It was just chance, she thought. Just a game. She was just unlucky.

She wasn’t. Keith had stacked the deck. Lance didn’t know there WAS a way to cheat at Monopoly, but between the two of them, they made sure Shiro was slowly gaining steam, while Allura was foiled at every turn. 

It was like sitting next to a bomb they all knew would go off. Shiro made several attempts to ease the tension, light jokes, and Lance was fairly sure he had tried to flub his own roll. But it was to no avail. Lance and Keith stoked the fires, a fire they could practically see burning behind Allura’s eyes. 

And then, it happened. Allura once again got put in jail “THIS IS BULLSHIT!” She threw the cards at Keith and shouted, standing suddenly, “Reshuffle those cards! This is ridiculous! It’s like the cards are SPECIFICALLY out to get me! Why is this HAPPENING?!” She started pacing back and forth. Lance and Keith shared a smile. 

“Hey,” Shiro said, standing up, trying defuse his girlfriend. “Hey, it’s all right. It’s just a game.”

“I KNOW ITS JUST A GAME!” She shouted at him. She balled her hands into fists as tried to get her emotions under control. Lance smirked to himself. Rookie mistake, using the ‘its just a game’ line. “I—I know! I just. Its easy for YOU to say! You’re WINNING! You—you--!” She was so frustrated she couldn’t come up with words to stay, so she stormed off. 

Shiro bit his lip, but went after her. “You two wait here. Hold on.” He got up and followed her into the other room. Keith and Lance exchanged a look, and immediately after the door was closed, they both got up as silently as they could manage and crept up to put their ears against the door. “Hey,” They heard Shiro say over what sounded like Allura pacing, “What’s going on?”

“I KNEW this would happen!” Allura snapped at him, “I get…angry and competitive and…Ugh, this is JUST like when I was a kid. I thought I was above this! A princess is supposed to be better than this!” 

The pacing stopped, and Lance was pretty sure Shiro was the one who stopped her. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s not bad to be upset.”

“But it’s just a stupid game!” She said, “Why am I so upset?” She groaned, “I just want to shove my emotions back in!”

Shiro sighed, “It’s all right. You’re a passionate person, its not bad to be angry.” A pause. “Do you want to play something else?”

“No…” She said, “Maybe. I don’t want to ruin everyone’s fun.”

“Don’t worry about that.” He said, “We can stop playing all together if you want.”

A pause, and then, in a quieter voice she said, “This was the first time Lance actually volunteered to do anything with you and Keith. You saw those two out there! They’re finally starting to get along, I can’t ruin that!”

Keith and Lance stared at each other. Lance felt guilty again. ‘sorry Allura,’ he thought, ‘we’re only getting along so we can destroy your relationship. Shit happens.’ 

“Yeah…” Shiro said, “Yeah, that was kinda weird. But it’s not going to get ruined over a monopoly game.”

“You don’t know that.” Allura said. “Shiro…I love you. But…it feels like we’re in a house divided.” 

Keith and Lance exchanged a look. This was it. The closest they’d come to seeing actual strife between these two. “You think we moved too fast?” Shiro asked.

Allura sighed. “Maybe…” She said. “I just wish there was something we could DO about this…whole thing.”

They were disappointed to hear the sound of a kiss. “I think I have an idea,” Shiro said. "But first," There was another pause. Keith and Lance leaned as close to the door as they could, pressing themselves up against the wood. 

A moment later, and the door swung open, causing Keith and Lance to both stumble through and onto the floor. “Hey boys,” Shiro said, “Why don’t you two clean up. We’ll have game night some other time.”

Allura giggled behind them. Blushing at being caught, they both picked themselves off the floor. For once, Lance was at a loss for words, so, reluctantly, he went back and started cleaning up the game. He looked up at Keith and sighed, giving a shrug, as if to say ‘that went well.’

Keith rolled his eyes, as if to say ‘shut up.’ 

It wasn’t until later that night that Lance realized he and Keith had communicated silently throughout the game, just as Shiro and Allura did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be Shiro's idea. So that'll be fun.


	4. Festival of Lions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Lance are forced to be friends

“A WHAT?” Keith and Lance said at the same time. 

“A family outing!” Allura said. “We’ll all go to the Festival of Lions together!” 

Shiro and Allura smiled down at an aghast Keith and Lance who were both gaping in shock. “But we’re not a family…” Keith said, recovering before Lance.

Allura flinched at the words, but kept up her spirit. “Well, its partially to make up for the game night I ruined. The other part will be a wonderful bonding experience!”

“Haven’t we bonded enough?” Lance said, leaning into the couch. 

Shiro shrugged. “You two are always at school, or just hanging around here,” Or trying to destroy a relationship, Keith thought to himself. One glance at Lance and he knew he was thinking the same thing. “It’ll be fun to go out and DO something all together.

“Now, I’ll have some duties to perform at the closing ceremony,” Allura said, “And Shiro will be doing things with the other Voltron students, but you two should feel free to have as much fun as you can! I’ve even gotten you special seats for the fireworks show.”

“But I was planning on going to the festival with Hunk and Pidge!” Lance said.

“And I was planning on studying alone for once.” Keith added. 

“You’re always alone, loser.” Lance shot at him.

“Maybe the fact I study instead of goofing off is why I beat you in class at every chance.” Keith said.

“Alright, that’s enough.” Shiro interrupted before Lance could retort. “Lance, you can bring Hunk and Pidge along. Like Allura said, we’ll be busy at some parts so the four of you can stay together when we’re gone. And Keith, I think the top of the class can afford one night to not be studying.”

At the ‘top of the class’ comment, Lance grumbled something to himself no one else could hear. 

Keith sighed. “And if we don’t go?”

“Then we’ll come up with some other bonding thing to do.” Shiro said, threatening. 

So, that’s how Keith found himself driving to the festival on his hoverbike. Allura and Shiro had left for it early, but had left behind a limo for them. Keith didn’t want to be trapped into leaving at the same time as Lance, though, so let Lance go just with Hunk and Pidge. 

He pulled up in front of Lance and parked.

Pidge and Hunk flipped out. “WHOAAAAA!” They said in unison, coming over to inspect it, “These controls,” Pidge exclaimed, jumping into the drivers seat, “These are state of the art market material!” They lightly stroked the top of the controls, worn down with use.

Hunk, meanwhile, fell down to the ground and looked up at the engine, “Is this a 1V6T Engine?”

Keith shrugged, “Parts of it. I used a lot of scraps, for the most part.”

“You BUILT this?” Hunk asked, amazed. Keith nodded, “Your craft is being wasted as a pilot, you should join the Engineers instead.”

Keith blinked. He knew he was good, but he had never thought he would be an engineer. He could practically hear Lance’s teeth grinding. It was bad enough Keith was better at him at piloting. Keith didn’t press the issue. 

“Hey,” Pidge asked, “You want me to tinker with this at some point? I could make something custom, give you complete control. Hyper-reactive steering, you’d practically control it with your thoughts.”

Keith bit his lip. Was he serious? He didn’t SOUND like he was kidding. But it was hard to tell sometimes with people. Before he got the chance to answer, Lance butted in, “Okay, fawning over the bike later, going to the Festival now. C’mon guys. We’ve got about half an hour before Shiro and Allura come looking for us.”

Hunk and Pidge reluctantly left the bike behind and they entered the festival grounds. There were a great deal of colors and lights and weird smelling food. Keith looked around, confused. It was like he had stepped onto another planet. “So Lance,” Hunk asked, “You’ve been to these before, right? What should we do first?”

Lance smiled slyly, “Definitely the rides.” He grabbed Pidge’s and Keith’s wrist and pulled them down through the rows of stands, Hunk behind them. “C’mon, we gotta go fast, the lines are going to be crazy later.” 

“I didn’t realize you’d get so excited about spinning teacups, Lance,” Keith said. He was surprised that Pidge laughed at his joke. His words had been mean, weren’t Pidge and Hunk Lance’s friends? Why would they laugh at Lance?

Lance rolled his eyes, “Okay, besides the fact that the spinning teacups are plenty fun, I wasn’t talking about them.” He smirked. “I was talking about THAT.” 

A tall ride stood in front of them with the label ‘Zipper.’ From what it looked like, it was as if someone had deflated a ferris wheel so that it was almost nearly vertical, the seats going vertically up, and then vertically down. Except, instead of typical seats, there were more like…like cages. Cages that were held by a rod that would flip the cage over and over as they ascended and descended. 

“Oh god.” Hunk said, “Ohhhhh no. No I am not getting in that.” 

“Don’t be a baby,” Lance said. Now Lance was saying mean things to Hunk? Friendship was very confusing. “C’mon, I always wanted to go on this as a kid, but I was too short. It’s finally my chance!”

Hunk shook his head, “As an engineer, I have to point out the flaws in this design. We could get trapped in that thing, or one of the cages could fall or—“

“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” Pidge said. “I wanna try it!” Pidge beamed at them all, and led them to the entrance. Hunk waited outside.

The cage was just wide enough to fit Lance, Pidge, and Keith, and that was only because Pidge was small. Keith was appalled, if slightly excited, to find there was no seatbelt inside the cage. So they were just 3 people loosely flying around. He had always been a bit of a daredevil, though, so this didn’t scare him. He braced himself so he didn’t slam his face into the bars. The cage almost immediately flipped over backwards as they started ascending, and despite their earlier bravery, Pidge let out a squeak. Lance laughed, but whether it was at the ride or Pidge, Keith couldn’t tell. 

The cage continued flipping back and forth, and Keith, Pidge, and Lance, were thrown this way and that. Pidge screamed their head off through most of it, though they seemed to be enjoying themselves. Lance did his fair of screaming too, while Keith laughed at the adrenaline rush. 

When they emerged, Pidge took a few experimental steps trying to keep themselves balanced. They readjusted their glasses on their face as Lance reached out to steady them. “I think that’s enough of that for the day.” Pidge said, as they all met with Hunk.

“Are you kidding?” Lance said, “That was AMAZING! Just as I pictured as a kid. Pure fun. 10/10 would ride again.”

Keith rolled his eyes, “Please, you were screaming throughout the whole thing.”

Lance rounded on him. “I handled it better than you did!”

“Prove it.”

Lance paled slightly. “You want to go again? Right now?”

Keith smirked. “Unless you’re scared.” 

And he knew he had him. Lance scrunched up his face, grabbed Keith’s arm again, and pulled him towards the ride. Hunk, taking over the duty of steadying Pidge, yelled out to them, “We’re gonna head over to the food stands.”

Without Pidge in the cage, It was harder to try and stay still, and so he got knocked into Lance and vice versa a lot more often. Eventually, Lance had to just grab hold of Keith’s shirt in a desperate attempt to keep himself steady. Or, that’s what Keith assumed anyway. He blushed a little, but they were both spinning and screaming too much for anyone to notice. Instead of commenting on it, he held onto Lance as well, and the two of them tried desperately to keep each other steady. 

When the ride came to a close, they released each other and came stumbling out of the cage, both laughing. Keith clutched his forehead. “Okay, that was fun, but I think that’s enough for me too.”

“Ha!” Lance said, “Point McClain, I’m perfectly fi—“ Lance walked into a pole. 

Keith howled in laughter as Lance righted himself, shaking off the contact. He actually giggled a bit to himself. “Alright,” Lance said, “Maybe I could use some fuel before going on anything else. C’mon, food’s this way.”

As Keith’s laughter died down, the silence between them grew. Keith didn’t know what to talk about with Lance. Actually, come to think of it, this was the first time they got along when they weren’t trying to destroy Allura and Shiro’s relationship. They needed a better way to refer to that. Lance had once suggested code names, but Keith shot that idea right down. Now he kinda wish he’d gone for it. 

Lance was apparently feeling a bit awkward at the silence too, so he started talking. “I used to go to the festival up at the Capitol as a kid. It’s way bigger, and they have way cooler rides. Everything there is set up to stay for the whole year, it just…sits there and waits until next year’s festival comes around. The zipper’s the same though, so that’s good.”

Keith nodded. “What else is there at these things?” 

Lance sighed, “Well, there’s overpriced food. Some games that you can play, prizes to win and all that. I think this place…yeah, there’s a big maze over there, but its pretty much for kids. There are some contests you can play, a lot of those are geared towards families too. And then there are the dances, and at the end of the night there’s a big musical performance and fireworks!”

Keith blinked. “You really like fireworks?” He asked.

“Uh, DUH!” He said, “What, don’t you?”

Keith shrugged. “I dunno. I’ve never been to a fireworks show.”

Lance’s jaw dropped. “What?” He asked, “How can you…did you and Shiro grow up under a rock?” He asked.

Keith rolled his eyes. “Shiro hasn’t been my foster brother for all that long. I moved to a bunch of different foster homes for a while. Never got to go.” Lance gaped at him in shock. “Its not that big a deal. I’ve always heard they’re loud and smokey. Like, I’ve seen pictures of them.”

Lance shook his head, “It’s not the SAME. Now you HAVE to see them tonight. Allura got us amazing seats, it’s gonna be the shiiiii—“ Lance stopped short of swearing as a tiny child ran past him. “Um. The Shindig. Yes.”

“Nice save.” Keith mocked. Lance rolled his eyes at him. 

By that point they reached the food area, a bunch of picnic tables surrounded by food carts. “Lance! Keith!” Hunk called to them, waving his arms in the air. They made their way over. They were both halfway through their meals, which did not look like any food Keith had seen.

“Ah, no, you got the goo?” Lance asked, sniffing Pidge’s meal, “That’s not even the good kind.”

“There’s a good kind?” Pidge asked, sniffing their own meal. “It all looked the same to me.”

Lance shook his head, “Throw that stuff out, I’ll go get us all some meals. And for goodness sake, don’t drink the nunvil.”

Hunk, who had been about to take his first sip, gingerly put it on the table. He, Pidge, and Keith stared at it after Lance walked away. “What do you think is wrong with it?” Hunk asked.

They both stared at the liquid and shrugged. “Maybe he’s just messing with us?” Pidge asked, “It looks fine.”

“Why would he do that?” Keith asked, “You’re his friends, right? Like, me I get why he’d mess with me, but…”

Pidge gave another shrug. “The three of us are always messing with each other. Especially Lance. It’s basically how we interact at this point.”

Keith blinked in surprise. Granted, he didn’t have many close friendships, but that seemed odd. What was the difference between Lance’s friendly messing with his friends and his rivalry arguments with him? “I’m gonna try it,” He said. 

Hunk pushed the glass to him. Keith picked it up, staring down the liquid. Beside him, Pidge started muttering “chug chug chug chug,” Hunk joined them, “Chug Chug Chug Chug!” And so Keith downed the entire glass in one go. 

And immediately spit it all out.

All over Hunk. 

Panic washed over Keith. These guys didn’t like Keith anyway, and now they were going to hate him. Hunk had already turned away from Keith, covering his face on instinct. 

Suddenly, Hunk turned back around, holding up brightly colored marshmallows on sticks over his eyes. “Blaaah! The nunvil has changed me!”

Pidge howled in laughter, It slowly dawned on Keith that first off, Hunk was okay, and second, he was not about to be made fun of. Or, not seriously anyway. He let himself laugh as Hunk made increasingly funny faces. “Ah, man!” Pidge said, “Nice one, Keith!”

Keith smiled, unsure of what to say to that, but it appeared he didn’t have to as Hunk and Pidge kept laughing. Hunk eventually ate one of the marshmallows on a stick. He offered the second one to Pidge, who waved their hand in refusal, and then to Keith, “Seriously?” Keith asked, “After I spit up on you?” 

Hunk shrugged, “Eh, it happens.”

“Mostly its him doing it,” Pidge said, “So he really doesn’t have a right to complain about other people.” Hunk lightly punched Pidge on the arm. 

Keith laughs again, but slowly the laughter dies down. “So, Keith,” Pidge asks, “Where are you from?”

Keith wasn’t sure how he was supposed to answer that, “Uhh….A lot of places, I guess.”

Hunk raised an eyebrow, enjoying another marshmallow treat, “Army brat?”

“Foster kid.” Keith said, shrugging his shoulders. 

He watched them for their responses. Both Hunk and Pidge nodded, not sure how to react, but finally Pidge said, “Oh yeah, Lance mentioned you were Shiro’s foster brother, right?”

Keith nodded, “His parents adopted me about…a year and a half ago. He was already at the Garrison by then. Then I got in and came out here to live with him.” Keith processed Pidge’s words for a moment, “Lance talked about me?”

Hunk and Pidge rolled their eyes, “Like, ALL the time.” Hunk said. “We have heard every blow-by-blow on your whole evil scheme thing.”

“He told you about that?” Keith said. They nodded again. “Why would he do that?”

Pidge shrugged, “Maybe because that’s what he spends like, half his time doing these days?”

Keith hadn’t really thought about it…but yeah, a lot of their time seemed to be invested in plotting. Well, most of it was them arguing about what they should do, but still. Keith didn’t know what to say to that, so he just said, “oh.” He tried processing that information, thinking of what it might mean. Not coming to a conclusion, he buried the knowledge and decided he should ask a question to change the subject. “So, uh, where are you guys from?”

“Oh, the three of us are American.” Hunk said. 

Keith raised an eyebrow, “Three?”

“Got the meals!” Lance said, coming back with a tray in each hand, covered in food.

Hunk took his food as though Lance hadn’t said anything. “Yeah, I’m from Hawaii, Pidge is from Ohio, and Lance here’s from Florida.” Pidge grabbed the other food from Hunk’s tray, forcing Keith and Lance to share.

“I thought you were from Altea?” Keith asked Lance. 

Lance shook his head, “Well. I mean, I had a house here as a kid I would stay at a lot, but that was years ago.”

“But…”Keith said, trying to put information together, “Your dad’s a paladin of Voltron. Shouldn’t you live up at the capitol?”

Lance went stiff, eating his meal, but staring intensely at the tray. Pidge and Hunk exchanged a look. “We moved back to Florida after he died.”

Keith had no idea Lance’s father had died. He wondered if he died as a paladin…suddenly two very important memories hit Keith.

“Mr…McClain, is it?” said Professor Montgomery.  
“Ha! Point McClain!” said by Lance.

“Your Dad was Charles McClain?!” Keith asked. He had READ about Charles McClain. He was the hero pilot that sacrificed himself to save King Alfor from an assassination attempt. A bomb had been set in the King’s plane, and the autopilot controls sabotaged. The King and his staff parachuted to safety, while McClain had piloted the plane out to the ocean and away from civilians.

In present day, Lance raised an eyebrow at him. “You didn’t know?” Keith shook his head. Lance shrugged. “Now you know.”

Pidge and Hunk looked about as uncomfortable as Keith felt. Keith had upset Lance on a daily basis, and never had he seen him go so…sullen.

Trying to ignore the silence, Lance looked at his phone. “Oh, shit,” He said, as he saw the array of missed calls and texts from Allura. Keith took out his own phone. Indeed, he had missed several calls from Shiro. Lance took the initiative and hit redial, “Hello? Allura? Yeah, we’re over by the food.”

Shiro and Allura arrived just as they had all finished eating. Pidge gave Shiro a hug, as they indeed knew each other through Pidge’s brother, and both Pidge and Hunk were slightly overwhelmed to meet a princess.

Lance insisted they all go to the festival games. “Allura, I promise, I will win you a MILLION stuffed lions!” Lance said, as the group arrived at the first booth.”

Shiro and Allura rolled their eyes. “Well, I want a billion stuffed lions.” 

Lance deflated, “Well, that seems a little unrealistic.” 

Keith rolled his eyes. “Please. Like you could even get one of those things.”

“Excuse you!” Lance said, putting his money down, I happen to be a sharp-shooting champion. They used to call me the hawk because I have a hawk’s eye.”

“More like Hauck a lougie.” Keith muttered.

“YOU’RE a loogie!” Lance said, all but literally butting heads with Keith.

“Ooh, great comeback!” Keith said.

“Put your money where your mouth is!” 

“Fine!” Keith said, taking his wallet out and putting his own money on the counter. 

It turned out, Lance was a pretty decent sharpshooter after all. Keith still just barely won the first game, which meant Lance had to demand a rematch. Lance won the second, and so Keith demanded a tiebreaker.

At first, watching was fun. Shiro and Pidge cheered on Keith, while Allura and Hunk spurred on Lance. Some of Allura’s words of encouragement seemed to come out more like threats. 

After the seventh game, though, they were tired. “Lance, Keith,” Allura said, “Shouldn’t we be going to, I dunno, something else?”

“Uh-huh,” Keith said.

“Sure. Lance said. Neither of them moved from their spot, or looked up from the game. 

Pidge tried a different tactic. “Lance, Keith, Aliens are invading and they abducted everyone and we have to go be experimented on.

“Uh-huh.” Keith said.

“Sure.” Lance said. 

Pidge shrugged. “Welp. I tried. I saw an arcade back there, I’m gonna go play.” 

“I wanna try some of that funnel cake,” Hunk said.

“Ooh, or the games where you can win the goldfish!” Allura said, “I always loved those!”

“Do you want me to win one for you?” Shiro asked.

Allura glared at him. “Please. I’ll win one for you.” The four of them wandered off, leaving Keith and Lance glued to the shooting game. 

After 10 games, the man behind the counter cut them off. “You can’t do that!” Lance said.

“We’re tied 5-5!” Keith protested. 

“Look kids, I got other customers,” He said, pointing at the crowd of people behind them. 

Lance pouted, “Do we still get a lion?” 

The man gave each of them a giant lion, a blue one for Lance, and red for Keith. When they got up to leave, they looked around and realized… “Hey, where’d they all go?”

Keith looked around, but couldn’t see them. He took out his phone to call Shiro, when he saw Shiro had actually texted him. The text read, “When you two are done, we all went to the dancing area.”

Keith showed the text to Lance, “Do you know where that is?” He asked. 

Lance nodded, “Ooh, I bet its almost time for the flower dance!”

“The what?” Keith asked, but Lance didn’t elaborate as they made their way to a large field Keith hadn’t noticed before. There were people dancing in…weird patterns along the ground. The music was playing off to the side, playing a bouncy rhythm with strings and drums.

“C’mon!” Lance said, grabbing Keith’s hand, “We gotta join in before all the spots are filled up!” 

“Lance, what’s happening?!” Keith said, but Lance again didn’t answer, instead putting his lion on the ground, forcing Keith to do the same, and then dragging him over to the people and grabbing one of their hands. 

Keith looked down and noticed there were actually lines, or markings rather they were curved to be lines, painted into the grass that Lance was following. He followed in Lance’s footsteps. This…this wasn’t too hard. Was this dancing?

Someone else grabbed Keith’s other hand, now following Keith, as the strange string of people filled in all of the markings on the ground. They would occasionally go under people’s arms or lift their arms for someone else to go through. Keith wasn’t quite sure what the purpose of this was, but he followed it anyway. 

Eventually, they crossed and found their friends, “You made it!” Shiro said as they passed each other. Unfortunately, they were going in opposite directions, so Keith didn’t get to say anything back, but he saw him holding Allura’s hand, while Allura held Hunk’s and Hunk held Pidge’s. 

The music started getting faster and with it, the dancers did too. Keith fell into a pattern, following Lance’s steps exactly. His hand started to feel warm in Lance’s hand. 

The music built up and up and up, and even Keith, who spent most of his time working out, was nearly out of breath. “Look up,” Lance said. Looking, Keith first saw a camera, hovering above the dancers. Then he saw the screen the camera was projecting on, giving a birds-eye-view of the dancers. The pattern wasn’t as random as he had thought. Instead, the dancers all seemed to form the shape of a giant flower on the ground, a flower Keith had seen here but nowhere else. 

All of a sudden, the music stopped. Lance, Allura, Shiro, and several other people who knew the dance and the music stopped along with it. Keith, Hunk, Pidge, and several of the newcomers, did NOT, which led to Keith falling INTO Lance’s arms. 

Lance held him steady for a moment, keeping his balance. Keith looked up into Lance’s eyes. His eyes were…were blue. And for this moment, they were not sarcastic or mean or sad or any other emotion that Keith usually saw. When they weren’t like that, they were….nice.

Lance dropped Keith on the ground like a hot potato. “Ow!” Keith said, as Lance laughed at him. 

Shiro and Allura walked up to them. “We have to go prepare for the concert,” Allura said, “But we wanted to give you two these.” She handed them tickets, “You should have a view of the whole sky for the fireworks. And, I’m sorry Hunk and Pidge, I could only get two on short notice...”

Pidge smiled, “That’s alright, Princess.”

Hunk nodded, “We’ve got seats down on the field. Besides, we’ll be closer to the band down there.”

“All right,” She said, “See you guys later.” And they were off again, Allura and Shiro to the stage, Hunk and Pidge to the fields. 

“So, I guess we should go take our seats.” Keith said. Lance nodded. He had gone oddly quiet. 

The silence stretched on as they sat and waited for the orchestra to start. What did they usually talk about? The only thing that came to mind was their plots against Shiro and Allura. “So,” Keith said, “I’ve been thinking, maybe we’ve been going at the wrong angle for the whole Shiro and Allura thing.” 

Lance turned, “Oh?”

Keith nodded, trying to keep the conversation going, “Yeah. I mean, a lot of our ideas are pretty well foiled if Shiro and Allura just go and talk to each other. They have their whole communication thing down.” 

Lance nodded. “Okay, I see what your saying. A new approach. That makes sense.” He sighed, “What do people even break up over anyway?”

Keith shrugged. “I dunno. Never been in a relationship.”

Lance looked to him. “Never?” Keith shook his head. “Do you wanna? I mean…not like…I mean, like Pidge is aroace, so, I just mean if you are too, then—“

“Do you need a minute to cool down?” Keith said, cutting him off. Lance physically closed his mouth with his hand. Keith rolled his eyes. “As it happens, I would like to be in a relationship. Someday.” His heart panged for a second as he thought of Shiro, but shook that thought aside. “I’m gay, not aroace.”

“Oh.” Lance said quietly. “I’m bisexual.”

Keith nodded. “I figured.” Lance raised an eyebrow at him. “You’ve flirted with, like, everyone in class.”

Lance swallowed, “I didn’t think you paid attention to anyone but yourself.”

Keith shrugged. “You’re kind of hard to ignore.”

A hush fell over the crowd as the microphone came on. Keith saw on the projected screens Allura speak into it, some speech about unity and togetherness. Keith mostly tuned it out, thinking about his day. It had…actually been kinda fun hanging out with Lance and his friends. He and Lance bickered, but apparently Lance bickered with a lot of people. Was it friendly or not friendly? Keith thought about what Pidge had said, that he and Lance spent all their time together plotting. Were…were he and Lance friends?

He opened his mouth to ask that very question, when Allura stopped speaking and the music started. 

Keith lay back and closed his eyes. This classical music wasn’t exactly his favorite by a longshot, but he could admire that it was well done, and he could always appreciate music better when he closed his eyes. 

After the first two songs, Lance nudged him. “Keith, look!” 

Keith opened his eyes to see what looked like a tiny rocket take off into the sky. With a pop, it burst into flares of red, slowly fizzling in the sky. Another came up, this one blue. “Whoa,” Keith said, watching each progressive firework light up the sky. Red, Green, Blue and Yellow featured prominently, as four of the five Altean national colors. He supposed it would be hard to have black fireworks.

Lance smirked beside him, “Told you they were amazing.”

“Congratulations,” Keith said, still entranced by the sky, “You were right. Once.” 

Lance gave a short laugh. After a few minutes of watching the fireworks, Keith had a weird feeling on the back of his neck. He turned his head slightly, and caught Lance staring at him. Lance quickly turned back to the fireworks. Keith raised an eyebrow at him, his silhouette bathed in blue light. Still, he eventually turned back to the night sky, putting the odd moment out of his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoa this chapter was all over the place. And way longer than expected. Can you believe I thought I was going to make this whole thing half a chapter? Anyway. Sorry this went just SLIGHTLY past the deadline I set myself, I was away this whole week. Should be doing better soon. I hope.  
> Apologies for spelling errors, I am sick and bad at editing.  
> Kudos for those who catch the parks and rec reference.  
> The Altean festival is partially based on my local agricultural fair, a fourth of july fireworks concert I went to, and stuff I just pulled out of my ass. It's a fake country, I can make them celebrate however I want.


	5. Chapter 5

Lance was fucked. Royally fucked. In two separate but equally bad ways. 

The first, slightly more manageable fuckening had happened two weeks ago at the festival. When Keith had fell into his arms, he had…*shudder* FELT something. Like, okay, Keith was attractive, that was just something someone with EYES could see, Lance had always known that. Plus, Lance found nearly everyone attractive on some level. That didn’t mean anything. 

Then that feeling happened again while they were watching fireworks. Keith was just so full of wonder, and…well Lance had always liked fireworks, but the way Keith looked at them, it was like he had been taking them for granted all this time. It didn’t help that they had been relatively friendly with each other all through that day. They had competed, and bickered, sure, but not really argued.

And now, two weeks later, the feelings hadn’t gone away. It didn’t help that Pidge and Hunk had started inviting Keith to their hangouts, and even to sit with them at lunch. But he was patient. The feelings always went away, he told himself, and so ignored them. 

The second fuckening was a little more prominent. He was failing his schoolwork. Well, not failing. But he was struggling a lot. He was starting to grow numb to low school grades. It wasn’t for lack of trying either! He had been pulling all nighters, trying desperately to get his grades up. He had started canceling plans with Pidge and Hunk so he could pour over homework. 

It was actually starting to impede his time with Keith as they plotted against Shiro and Allura. And Keith was not pleased. “Lance.” Keith complained, sitting on his own bed across, tapping his foot impatiently, “Hurry up. Dinner is soon.”

“Hold on,” Lance said, “Almost…” Wait. That answer didn’t make any sense. Lance flipped back a few pages and re-read the rules. It didn’t help that his book was drawn over and slightly torn in places. 

Something hit him in the head. “Ow!” Lance protested. He looked down. It was Keith’s textbook. “What the hell was that for?” 

“You can use it.” Keith said, “It’s actually clean.”

Lance picked up the textbook and flipped through to the page he was doing word problems on. It was actually a little jarring not to see notes written in all of the margins. “Thanks,” He muttered, pushing his own textbook aside. 

He bit his lip, focusing on the work and trying to absorb it. He never had to study in his preliminary school, and wasn’t sure how to do it. But he had to. He would show up Keith, and Professor Montgomery, and everyone else. 

“Laaance.” Keith complained as Lance re-read the page.

“Saying my name over and over doesn’t make me finish faster.” Lance said, begging his brain to hold onto the information. 

Sighing, Keith marched over to him and lay beside him on the bed. “What are you having trouble with?”

Lance quickly covered his answers with his hands, “I don’t need your pity!” Lance said.

“It’s not pity. It’s help. Will you fucking accept it, or not?”

Lance grimaced, torn between his bitter rivalry with Keith and his feelings of helplessness right now. “Fine.” Lance pushed the book between them. “I’m having trouble with vectors.”

As loathe as Lance was willing to admit it, Keith actually knew what he was doing. “How do you remember all of this?” Lance said. 

Keith shrugged, “I used to get my hands on piloting books as a kid, and I’d hide away and read them.” He shrugged, “It was easier than dealing with foster families.”

Lance felt a twinge of guilt for asking now. Still, Keith’s facial expression didn’t change, so they kept studying. “Alright,” Keith said, “That should do you for todays work.”

“Thanks,” Lance muttered closing his textbook. He bit his tongue, knowing what he needed to ask, but desperately not wanting to. Still, he swallowed his pride and said, “Would you be able to help me tomorrow too? I mean, if I’m having trouble, which I probably won’t be, but.”

Keith smirked at him. “Sure. That sounds fine. Do you wanna get to our next plan?” Lance nodded. 

Keith pulled out a journal where they had been documenting their attempts to break the couple up. They had each written down everything they knew about Shiro and Allura, every pet peeve that they had, every personality tick that would be annoying to other people. They had tried 3 more times since the monopoly game, but each time was fruitless. The closest they got was a small argument over Allura’s cooking skills. 

Lance still hadn’t told Keith about what Allura had said before monopoly. He knew that if Keith asked Shiro, they could get the couple to break up fairly easily. But something about it felt wrong, so he kept that information to himself.

“Ugh,” Lance said, “This is so HARD. Allura’s so perfect no one would want to break up with her.” 

Keith rolled his eyes at him. “She’s not THAT perfect.” He said, a touch of bitterness in his voice. 

“Uh, yeah she is.” Lance said, “She’s a princess.” 

“So you’ve mentioned,” Keith said, looking over their notes. “But Shiro’s an actual decent person without royalty involved.”

It was Lance’s turn to roll his eyes, “Allura’s way out of his league. Not only is she a royalty, but she’s like…technically in charge of his program, so he basically seduced her and it’s kinda creepy.”

“She’s not his boss, he—“Keith froze, looking at the book, and then up at Lance, “Lance, you’re a genius.” 

There was that pesky feeling in Lance’s chest again. He smothered it with a metaphorical pillow. “I know I am,” Lance said, grinning smugly. “Just, uh. Just so we’re all on the same page here, what exactly am I a genius for?”

Keith sat up across from Lance, “We’ve been looking at this all wrong, we’re never going to make Shiro and Allura sick of each other on our own. We need to create a situation where they HAVE to break up for their jobs.”

Lance wasn’t following. “So…like…what do you mean?”

Keith sighed, “If we get Shiro’s supervisor to drop him, Allura will be his supervisor again. And if Allura’s his supervisor—“

“Then it would be unethical for her to be dating a student!” Lance said, finishing Keith’s thought. The gave each other a celebratory high five. “This is great! We don’t have to deal with Shiro and Allura at all, we just have to convince this supervisor dude. Who is Shiro’s supervisor anyway?”

Keith bit his lip. “Well, you see…that’s where this gets a bit trickier.”

 

“I hate this plan,” Lance muttered to Keith under his breath. 

“Shhh,” Keith said, as Professor Montgomery walked by. “Love the tie, today, sir.” Keith said. Montgomery smiled. 

“Kiss ass.” Lance muttered once Montgomery left.

“That’s the point.” Keith muttered back. “I’m going to have to suck up to him and be really nice all day. And what are you going to do?”

Lance sighed, “I’ll be quiet and not make him upset.” 

Keith nodded, “That’s right. Now, calm down, and try to not be as annoying as you usually are.” 

Professor Montgomery came back, handing back the pop quiz scores they all took the day before. Keith smirked at the perfect score on his, before stuffing it into his bag. He heard Lance sigh, crestfallen beside him. Keith looked over. The marking on the page got a C+, but that wasn’t the only odd thing about it. Lance bent the corner of the page away from Keith when he realized Keith was looking at it. “Buzz off,” He whispered.

“Wait,” Keith said, “Let me look at that.” Lance hesitated, but eventually showed his test to Keith. Keith took out his own test and compared the answers, “Your test was marked wrong, you got this question right.”

Lance frowned up at where Montgomery was still handing out tests, “That bastard!” He said, his voice raising just slightly above a whisper.”

“Shh!” Keith said, “What did I say about calming down. I’m sure it was just a mistake. You can bring it up tomorrow. In the meantime.”

“Don’t make him upset. Got it.” Lance sighed and put his test away, huffing to himself. 

“Alright, everyone, settle down.” Professor Montgomery said, “We’re doing individual simulations today, so everyone follow me down to the deck.” Everyone got up. Lance nudged Keith and nodded towards Montgomery. Keith nodded back and went up to suck up as hard as he could.

“Mr, uh, Mr. Montgomery,” Keith said as they walked down to the simulation room, “I wanted to talk to you about something.” 

Mr. Montgomery smiled at him, “Sure thing, kid. Whatever you want.” 

It was weird having a teacher like him so much. Most of the time teachers despised him for what he was told were ‘discipline issues.’ But Mr. Montgomery had taken a liking to him, as he was the all-star of the class. “Well, actually, it’s about Shiro. You’re his advisor right now, right?”

“Yes, that’s true.” Mr. Montgomery said, “He’s a good student.”

Keith nodded, “Well, actually I wanted to ask a favor for you.”

“Ah, I see.” Montgomery said as they reached the simulation hall, “Well, how about a deal. You do just as perfectly on this simulation as you always do, and I’m sure I can arrange for anything you need.”

Keith blinked. “Really?”

Montgomery smiled, “Of course, kid! Now lets get on with it. McClain,” He called out to the class. Lance stepped forward, his mouth a thin line as he tried not to speak up. “Lets see if you’ve improved any since last time.”

As it happened, Keith had been helping Lance with his work, and he was confident Lance was getting better under his mentoring. He smiled, with Lance’s great performance, Mr. Montgomery would be all the happier to grant them the favor of dropping out as Shiro’s supervisor.

Lance stepped up to the simulator and sat in, his face squared with concentration and confidence. Keith watched him, and noticed his eyes once again. He bit his lip, trying to use his mental willpower to get Lance to do well. 

Lance flicked the switches in perfect order, and took off. Keith smiled as Lance took a deep breath, lightly holding onto the handles instead of holding them in his usual death grip. Keith had told him that. 

The flight simulator was a little shaky, but Lance was trying to even it out the best he could. A little overcompensation on one side….not compensating enough to the other side…Still, he was getting through the obstacle course even if it was a bit messy. Keith smiled, actually proud of him. He was going slower, but that just meant he wasn’t rushing through it like he normally did. He didn’t hit nearly as many of the obstacles.

The simulation landed perfectly. Keith saw Lance breath a sigh of relief after not crashing it this time. Keith’s smile widened. He saw that same look in his eye, that genuine smile on Lance’s face. It was rare, at least it was rarely directed at Keith, but every time it was, Keith felt himself smiling more.

Montgomery clicked his tongue as Lance emerged. “Nearly 23 seconds slower than your last time, McClain. You’re getting worse.” 

All of the pride and confidence fell right off of Lance’s face. He frowned opening his mouth to argue, but looking at Keith, he swallowed his pride, and silently went to go join the other students.

“But sir,” Keith said, still watching Lance, “He avoided the obstacles better than any time before! Shouldn’t that count for something?”

Professor Montgomery took out his notes, “Agility is nothing without speed to go along with it. You need all of it to be a good pilot.” He nodded at the simulator, “Kogane, why don’t you go show him how it’s done.”

Keith was not known for his patience. It was his temper that had gotten him in trouble at his old schools. He had tried desperately to keep it in check, mostly because he knew Shiro would be disappointed if he didn’t. Still, once in a while, he saw red, and wouldn’t be stopped.

It wasn’t fair! Lance would never learn if Montgomery treated him like a second class citizen. And sure, Keith was doing better, but that’s because he literally spent all his time studying and training. What, was it illegal to have a social life now? Because Lance was way more emotionally stable than Keith and maybe if Montgomery got his head out of his ass he’d see that praising one student above all the others wasn’t right!

Keith grabbed hold of the controls and yanked the simulated ship to life. He pushed the thrusters forward with all of his might and the speeder shot off down the simulated track, bashing through every single obstacle without even the slightest hint of trying to avoid them.

The simulation was only designed to take so much damage, so after several crashes, it went still, and the screen flashed ‘simulation failed.’

Keith silently got up and left the simulator. The other students stared at him in shock, none of them more shocked than Lance. “How’s that for speed?” Keith muttered as he passed by Professor Montgomery. He took off his helmet and left the room, looking for the nearest vending machine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI IM SICK AND A LITTLE LOOPY BUT I WROTE THIS TODAY AND FUCK IT IM GONNA PUBLISH IT WHOO WOOOOOOO


	6. Damsel in Distress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance confronts Keith about the stunt he pulled in class.

Lance watched as Mr. Montgomery had Keith sent to the principals office for ‘disrupting the class’ or whatever. Which meant Lance didn’t get to see him until he came home later that day. 

Keith wasn’t in his room, so Lance went looking for him. What the hell had he been thinking? Why did he blow the simulation like that? It was HIS stupid plan, and the only one that had any likelihood of succeeding at, so— “All I want to know is why?”

Lance froze at the sound of Shiro’s voice. He backed up a step, standing just outside the garage, listening to Shiro using his ‘dad’ voice on what must be Keith, as Keith responded, “I told you. I lost control of the simulator. Just had a bad day.”

“Keith,” Shiro sighed, “You were doing so well here. I thought you LIKED the Garrison.”

“I do.”

“Then why—“ Shiro paused. “We’re talking in circles. Will you tell me the truth or not?”

“He was being a jerk, okay?” Keith said, “It’s not like I got in a fight with him or anything. It was just one lousy simulation.”

“I thought Montgomery liked you.” Shiro said, “He always has good things to say about you.”

“Not to me.” Keith said, “To Lance.” Lance felt his eyes go wide. He clenched his jaw, unsure of exactly what he was feeling, but he was feeling it a lot. “I dealt with teachers like him, choosing favorites and tanking everyone else just to make himself feel better. Only thing different now is that I’m the favorite.”

“Keith,” Shiro said, his voice full of sympathy, “I’m glad you and Lance are friends now, but you can’t handle problems like this.” 

Friend? Had Shiro just called Lance and Keith friends? Well, sure they studied together, and ate lunch together and they didn’t argue anymore and Keith was now friends with Lance’s friends, not to mention there were the weird attraction feelings that popped up every once in a while, but…what the hell, when did they become friends? “I know, Shiro.” Keith said, “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.” 

“Good.” Shiro said, “For good measure, you’re grounded. One week.” He heard Keith sigh, exasperated. Shiro opened the door, giving Lance less than a second to hide behind a bookshelf. He wasn’t sure if Shiro saw him but it didn’t matter. As soon as Shiro walked down the hall, he snuck into the garage himself. 

Keith was working on his hoverbike, tweaking something that Lance recognized as the controls Pidge had made custom for him. He was down to his T-shirt, hair tied up in a ponytail, and dripping with sweat. Good lord, this boy was not doing good things for Lance’s blood pressure.

Keith looked up to see Lance standing in the doorway, “Lance?” Keith asked.

Abruptly, Lance decided the emotion he was feeling was anger. “How. Fucking. Dare you.” 

Keith frowned at him, “Excuse me?”

Lance marched toward him, “I am not some—some damsel in distress for you to rescue! I don’t need your help, what do you think you’re trying to pull here?” 

Keith scoffed at him. “Seriously? I’m not trying to pull anything. The dude was being a jerk!”

“I could handle it! I was fine without you butting in!”

“I never said you weren’t!” Keith shouted back at him, “But you clearly weren’t going to give him a taste of his own fucking medicine, so I did!”

“Oh, I see!” Lance said, latching onto anything to justify his anger, “The great Keith can sacrifice one test to prove something because what the hell is one lousy simulation when the rest of your record is fucking perfect?”

“What, you’re mad because I’m better than you in class?!” Keith said, “Well, sorry, I guess, that you’re only second best in school and way better in everything else?”

“What?” Lance was honestly confused after that, “What the hell am I better at than you?”

“You have friends!” Keith said, and it looked like he had tears in his eyes, “You—you have your whole family thing that loves you. And the only reason your NOT better than me at school stuff is because while you’re out with your friends I’m home studying and training because I have fucking nothing better to do! I have Shiro. That’s it.”

Lance blinked staring at him in disbelief. “You…you have Hunk and Pidge…” he said, his voice quieter.

“They’re your friends.” Keith said, “They only like me because I’m your…your…”

Keith faltered. Lance didn’t know what word to supply there. “No, they don’t.” Keith frowned at him. “They like you for you. You can, you know, make friends and stuff. Without me.”

Keith shrugged, turning back to his hoverbike. “You just make it seem easy, is all.”

A silence grew between them. Keith screwed in bolts on the controls, testing the strength. Lance stood across him, and felt like he should still be angry at Keith, but a lot of the anger had seeped away. “Well, you completely trashed our whole Anti-Shallura plan.”

“Shallura?” Keith asked, looking over his shoulder.

“Yeah. It’s Shiro and Allura’s names combined. Like, Bradgelina and stuff.” Lance leaned back against the table with Keith’s tools on it. 

Keith wiped his forehead, then tossed Lance the wrench he was holding, “Can you hand me the screwdriver? The flathead?” Lance turned and grabbed the screwdriver, tossing it to Keith. “I thought we agreed that we weren’t going to use codenames.”

Lance shrugged, “I think it adds a little flair to it. Plus then we can talk about it when people are around without them finding out.”

Keith actually laughed at that, “Yeah, sure. I’m sure they won’t get the codename that contains their names.”

“Alright, listen, Mr. Smarty-Mullet, I wasn’t the one who sabotaged his own plan.” The words were his typical bickering with Keith, but they lost a great deal of their malice. “I mean, do you even want to break them up anymore?” 

Keith paused screwing in something on the handles. “Do you?” He asked.

Lance bit his lip. Did he? Shiro really was a nice guy and while he’d prefer it was him with Allura…wait, did he even prefer that anymore? When was the last time he’d flirted with her. Come to think of it, the only person in the last couple of weeks he’d thought of in any way like that was…

Keith finished with the screwdriver and walked back to his toolbox, putting things away. “I’m just saying,” he said, “Living with you…here…well, it’s not as bad as I thought it would be.” He shrugged, “And Shiro’s happy, so what the hell, right?”

Lance nodded, biting his lip. He should move, he was in the way of Keith’s toolbox. But standing there, and Keith was close to him…he wondered if this weird little…feelings, or crush or whatever it was really was ever going to pass…and if he really wanted it to. 

Surprising both Keith and himself, Lance started laughing. Keith frowned at him, confused, and with an unfamiliar glint in his eyes, which only made Lance laugh more. After a moment, Keith smiled, still confused and shaking his head, but a genuine smile all the same. It made Lance feel warm and fuzzy and so he laughed harder, eyes tearing up with the laughter, “Okay, okay,” He said, trying to calm himself down. “Okay. So, no more Anti-Shallura plans, I guess.” Keith shrugged an affirmation and it was so cute, Lance giggled again. “Okay. So. What do we do now?”

Keith, still smiling, closed his toolbox. “We could go for a ride.” He says, nodding his head to the hoverbike. “I need to test out these fabled controls Pidge made for me.” Lance stared at it. And look, it wasn’t that he was scared. He was a pilot, an adrenaline junkie. Its just that he had never been on those things before and, well, his mother would probably kill him for being in the same ROOM as one of those things. But…his mom was in a completely different country right now…

“Uhh…” Lance said, “Aren’t you grounded?”

“What, you think Shiro was serious about that?” Keith said. He shrugged, “I already broke the rules once today. So what?”

Lance swallowed. He really should say no. But Keith was removing his hair from his ponytail and shaking his hair out. “Sure. Why not? What’s the worst that could happen?” The way Keith smirked made Lance think he made the right decision as Keith passed him the blue helmet, and put the red one on his head.

He was a little more concerned when he realized the only place to sit on the bike was directly behind Keith. “Well?” Keith said, mounting the bike, “Come on.” 

Lance tried very, very hard to leave room for Jesus in between himself and Keith’s back, but really, the seat was curved so that he slid down right into him. “Grab on,” Keith said.

“To what?” There wasn’t exactly a back set of handlebars.

“To ME, idiot.” Keith said. Lance hesitated another second. “Lance, I swear, grab my waist or get off the bike.”

Lance sighed, and reluctantly wrapped his arms around Keith’s waist. Dammit, he smelt nice, even covered in sweat. He was just glad Keith was facing away so he didn’t see his blush. “Alright, what next?”

He could practically hear the smirk in Keith’s voice as he brought the hoverbike to life, “Hold on tight, and don’t let go.” 

With that, the bike zoomed off into the distance. On instinct, Lance squeezed Keith just a bit tighter, desperate to not fall off. Keith took right off out of the neighborhoods and into the famed and beautiful Altean countryside. Lance looked out over the mountain tops and the far off meadows, even looking at the beautiful wildflowers that they blasted past. He felt his heart soaring and wondered if this is how Keith felt all the time, every time he’d run off to ride his bike.

“Keith!” He yelled over the sound of the wind, “Keith, that’s a cliff up ahead,”

“Yup!” Keith yelled back. 

Lance’s stomach went cold, “Keith, seriously, we’re gonna run over a cliff!”

“Yup!” He had never heard Keith sound so happy in his life. Oh god. Lance started screaming. Oh god, oh god he was gonna die. What had he been thinking, getting on this, he’s gonna die, he’s gonna die, he—

“Woohoo!” Keith shouted as they dove over the edge.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH” Lance screamed. He could have sworn he heard Keith laughing at him, but Lance couldn’t process anything other than holding desperately onto Keith’s middle.

Suddenly, he felt as though he wasn’t falling anymore…but he also wasn’t dead. He heard the distant sound of a scream…oh, that was him screaming. He stopped, and gingerly opened a single eye he hadn’t realized was closed. They were at the bottom of the cliff, still zooming along, Keith’s laughter bubbling in his chest. “We’re alive!” He said, surprised.

Keith slowed the bike down, “Of course we are, idiot,” He said. The bike came to a stop in the middle of a meadow. Lance only registered how long they had been out when he saw the sun setting over the horizon. 

He reluctantly let go of Keith’s waist and got off the bike. “What is this place?” 

Keith shrugged, “I found it my first day in Altea. Its where I go when I wanna blow off steam or…think about things or whatever.”

Lance smiled at him, “It’s nice.” He stared at Keith, awkwardly for a moment, “How’d the controls work?”

Keith nodded and laid on the ground, “Good, I’ll have to thank Pidge.” He looked up at the sky, “I wanna rest the engines for a bit before we head back, is that okay?”

Lance shrugged, “Sure,” He went to go sit by Keith, and ended up laying beside him as well, watching the stars lightly blink into existence. He felt like he should say something. But maybe Keith didn’t want to talk, he seemed like the person who’d like comfortable silences. Lance was unfortunately not one of those people. “I suppose I should finally throw out my plans for me and Allura’s wedding.” He said. He looked over to Keith, measuring his response.

Luckily Keith did not seem incredibly annoyed. In fact, he snorted and looked back at Lance. “You actually had your wedding planned out.”

Lance nodded, “It was gonna be a big ceremony up at the capitol, with all of Altea in attendance. Allura, my blushing bride, would be in this gorgeous dress of white and pink and blue, with a train so long it would stretch out all the way down the grand hall.” He smiled at the dream, he pictured it so clearly in his head. It had…it had lost some of the luster and perfection he had pictured in his youth. “It was always a fantasy, I think.” He said, “I mean, Allura’s older than me, but you know when your young and you feel like you’re a lot older and you could have anything you really wanted.”

“Yeah…” Keith said, his eyes a million miles away, looking out into the distance. Lance waited, watching him for a sign of what he was thinking about. He must have realized he was quiet for a long time, because he blinked and looked back at Lance. “I…I used to have a crush on someone older too.” He explained.

“Who?” Lance asked, making conversation.

Keith bit his lip, reluctant to say it. “Shiro.” He finally said. Lance blinked in surprise. “Before you say anything, it was while ago. And I hadn’t started thinking of him as my brother yet.”

Lance nodded. “What happened?”

Keith looked up into the sky, stretching his arms up to rest them behind his head. “How do you compete with a princess?”

Lance kept staring at him. He was reminded of when the fireworks lit up his face. “So, when you say it happened a while ago…”

“Yeah, I lied about that.” Keith shrugged, looking back at Lance. “Its over now, though. Allura’s…really nice.”

“You should tell her that.” Lance said, “She thinks you hate her.”

Keith nodded, “I will.” 

Lance wasn’t sure what to say now, but he didn’t want to break eye contact with Keith, didn’t want to break the moment of the two of them, lying there, the stars finally peaking out, alone. It was getting dark and he could just barely see the outline of Keith’s profile. 

He decided to try out the comfortable silence, and so he lay back, looking up at the stars. He could feel Keith’s presence beside him. He wondered if Keith was still watching him. He looked out of the corner of his eye. Keith was. He stared back. It looked like he was leaning in, getting closer.

And then light.

Both of them let out tiny yells as light bathed them, and they covered their eyes. “THERE you two are!” Allura’s voice came from above them.

Lance sat up and rubbed his eyes, eventually, he could make out the shape of a car, with two people getting out, probably Shiro and Allura. The lights seemed to be coming from the headlights. He got up and out of the lights, rubbing his eyes. “Allura?” He asked.

“Shiro?” he heard Keith say. Blinking rapidly, he looked over to see Keith on the opposite side of the headlights. 

“What the hell did you two think you were doing?” Allura said, batting Lance about the head, “Your mother will KILL me if she finds out I let you go out riding a hoverbike at night.”

“And you,” Shiro said to Keith, “are supposed to be grounded!” 

Keith flinched under Shiro’s stare. “How did you find us?”

“I had a GPS tracker on your bike.”

“You what--?!”

“Clearly,” Shiro said, “for good reason. Now come on, both of you in the back of the car. Dinner’s getting cold.” Shiro grabbed Keith’s bike and went to hook it up to Allura’s towing gear. 

Reluctantly, Lance and Keith squirmed into the back of the car. Keith rested his head against the window. Only now, was Lance really processing what had happened. Had Keith tried to kiss him? Or was he imagining things? He couldn’t have been feeling similarly to Lance….could he?

Keith must have felt himself being watched because he looked up and smiled at Lance. Lance hoped the darkness covered his blush as he looked out the opposite window, trying to quiet down his thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Idk. This was supposed to be way angstier than this, but the fluff overtook me. I guess...I'll just have to compensate by upping the angst in the NEXT chapter! MWAHAHAHAH  
> no but seriously, I have been super looking forward to writing next chapter.


	7. Hello

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unexpected news throws Keith and Lance's feelings into chaos.

Keith had trouble getting to sleep that night. Had he really almost kissed Lance? Curse his stupid impulsive brain. 

Although, that did explain a lot of things. The way he’d been happier when Lance was happy. How he was suddenly okay with being around Lance more now. God, this was JUST like what happened with his crush on Shiro.

Except, Lance wasn’t quite as taboo as Shiro was. Well, they lived together, but that wasn’t the same as being brothers. Or adopted brothers. Whatever. 

He took a deep breath and looked across the room to where Lance was sleeping peacefully. Or, Keith assumed he was sleeping, he had his back turned to him. Okay. He needed to think about this, and not go all instinct and mess things up like he normally did. So. He liked Lance. What did he do about it? Tell Lance? That could work. That was what people did, right? From there, there were two possibilities. One, Lance would say he liked Keith back, and Keith could ask him out on a date. Two, Lance turns him down, and things are awkward for a while.

He bites his lip. That second one would be hard, considering how much time he spent around Lance. They had JUST started becoming friends, and he didn’t want to wreck that. Maybe he should wait a while? See if their friendship was strong enough to last the awkwardness? Ugh. Shiro would know. He’d have to ask tomorrow morning. 

He looked at the clock. It was 3 in the morning. At least it was the weekend, he could sleep in tomorrow. He heard the sounds of something crash downstairs. Probably either Allura or Shiro breaking something getting a midnight snack. He closed his eyes and willed himself to sleep.

He wasn’t sure exactly what woke him up. The first thing he noticed was his clock reading 7:04 AM. He had not gotten enough sleep, and he felt it. He almost dozed back off, when he realized Lance’s bed was empty. 

He blinked, rubbing his eyes. Lance was known for sleeping in, especially on weekends. “Lance?” He whispered. He heard sounds of movement downstairs. Getting up, he opened the door and saw lights on, and heard a low voice.

Curious, he went down to the kitchen. Lance was sitting at the breakfast table in his pajamas, talking in Spanish on his cellphone. He looked up at Keith when he walked down. Lance looked…serious. 

Deciding he wasn’t going to get any answers out of him before he hung up, Keith went to pour himself a bowl of cereal. Whatever conversation Lance was having, it sounded strained. Keith could only understand a few words like, “Pero Mama,” and “Garrison,” and “Allura.”

Keith saw a broken tea cup sitting on the floor. That must have been the crash he heard last night. He wondered why no one had bothered to clean it up. Sighing, he found the dustpan and swept up the shards, dumping them in the trash bin. 

Keith brought his cereal over to the breakfast table, just as Lance said, “Si Mama. Adios.” Lance hung up the phone, and stared off into middle distance. Keith watched him for signs of life. Even early in the morning, he had some kind of…humor to him. But now? His eyes looked…redder. Keith wondered how long he had been up. 

“What’s up?” Keith asked. 

Lance looked over at him, looking equal parts disbelieving and mentally exhausted. Keith suddenly felt guilty for asking such an innocent question. “You really slept through all that? I thought you were just faking to avoid people.”

Keith blinked at him. Slept through what? “I…had trouble getting to sleep last night. I must have really conked out.” He took a bite of his cereal. “What happened?”

Lance grabbed the remote sitting on the table and turned on the TV. Some doctor was being interviewed, but Keith read the information he needed on the banner that ran on the bottom of the screen, “King Alfor Dead.”

Keith dropped his spoon. “W-What?” He asked. “How? When?”

Lance turned the TV off. “Last night. He’d apparently been sick for a couple of days, nothing major, so it wasn’t in the news or anything. It all happened really fast.” Lance put the remote down and cradled his cellphone in his hands. 

Keith sat back in his chair. It wasn’t like he knew the King, and hell, he’d hardly been in the country for that long. Still, it was shocking. “How’s Allura?”

Lance sighed, “Not great.” He swallowed, “She’s in the other room with Shiro right now, having what must be the second hardest conversation she’s had today.”

Keith frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

Finally, Lance looked up to him, smiling, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Anti-Shallura plan worked after all. We won.” Keith didn’t follow him. “Don’t you see? Allura has to go back to the capitol to become Queen. She won’t exactly have time for a boyfriend anymore.” 

Keith turned to the closed doors Allura and Shiro must have been behind, where Shiro was having his heart broken. He had wanted this for a long time…and now, just when he had given up on it, it was coming true. He bit his lip. “Poor Allura,” He said. He didn’t really know how to handle sad things.

Lance nodded, “I’m sure she’ll give you guys however much time you need to find a new place and move out.” 

Keith nodded, the words taking a minute to process. He hadn’t even thought of that yet, this was Allura’s house, if she left, they would be expected to leave. He and Shiro would probably find some decent house to rent and Lance… “Where will you go?” 

Lance flinched at that. It took a moment for him to speak, “My family’s still close to Allura’s, so, I’ll go with her up to the Capitol for the funeral. And then…it’s back to Florida.”

“Florida?” Keith asked. Lance stared at his phone in his hands. “But…the Garrison…your training…”

His words faded out as he saw Lance sniffling. Lance blinked hard, keeping the tears at bay. “I’m dropping out.” Lance said. His voice was shaking. He looked up at Keith, and he must have found the dumbfounded look on Keith’s face funny, because he laughed, a very short laugh. “That was the deal I made with my mom. I get to stay as long as I live with Allura. Allura won’t be here, so,” He shrugged. 

Keith didn’t know what to say. “But…” he said, “But what about being a pilot?”

Lance snorted, and Keith wasn’t sure if he was laughing or crying. Lance didn’t seem too sure either as he covered his face with his hands. Keith pushed his cereal away and scooted his chair closer to Lance. He was terrible at comforting people. Carefully, he patted Lance on the back.

Lance reached forward and grabbed ahold of Keith’s shirt, pulling him into a hug. Keith stopped breathing for a moment in surprise. He felt Lance nestle his head into his neck, his shirt getting wet from tears. Letting his breath go, he put his arms around Lance, lightly patting him on the back. “Isn’t there anything you can do?” he asked into Lance’s hair, “You could live with Hunk and Pidge…or, or heck, you could move with me and Shiro wherever we go.”

Lance shook his head, “I already ran that by my mom. She doesn’t know any of you, so it’s a no go.” He sniffled a little, “She…She’s never really liked the idea of me being a pilot since my Dad died. She…” He stopped talking. He seemed incapable.

Keith hugged him a little tighter, “When do you go?” He muttered. 

Lance took a couple of strained breaths before saying, “I’m…I’m leaving with Allura tonight.” He said, “I…Allura will have someone get most of my stuff…whatever I can’t pack today…”

Keith squeezed him again. “So soon?” But he’d just realized how he felt about Lance! And now he was leaving? Lance gave a strained sob. Okay, so this wasn’t about him, it was about Lance losing his dream. What could he do to help? “I’ll…I’ll help you…with the packing.”

He heard something like a chuckle in Lance’s throat, “So eager to get rid of me?”

“No!” Keith protested, but as Lance chuckled more, he realized, “You…you were joking…”

Lance nods, lifting his head up. Keith let him go, and he wiped his eyes. “Your cereal’s getting soggy,” he said, pointing to the abandoned bowl. Keith looked at it. He didn’t really feel like eating right now. “Eat up, I, um…I have to make a few calls.” 

Lance went up to their shared room. Keith felt like he should follow him, but thought maybe he wanted to be alone for a few minutes. 

Not long after he had gone up, Shiro and Allura walked out the closed door. They both paused looking at Keith. He had never seen Shiro look so broken, even though there were no tears in his eyes. He guessed he was trying to stay strong while Allura was around. That would be like him.

Allura was a mess, her eyes red and blotchy, even though all her tears were long wiped away. He got up to stand in front of her. “I, um…” He wasn’t sure what to say, “My parents died as a kid, so, I—I know how hard it can be.” What was he saying, was he making this about himself? 

She didn’t seem to mind as she pulled him into a hug. He held her tightly. He remembered last night, when Lance told him she thought he hated her. “You’re um…you’re really a great person.” She froze in his arms. Did he say the wrong thing? He should say something else. “Thank you. For everything.”

She squeezed him, and he felt the air leave his lungs. Was she always that strong? She finally released him and said, “Thank you,” In a hoarse voice. He nodded. 

She backed away and started heading for the gardens, “I…I’m going to go take a walk.” She said. 

Shiro watched her, his eyes wavering. “Do you want me to—“

“No.” She cut him off. He flinched, and she looked guilty. “I, um. I need to be alone. For a little while.” With that, she walked out, closing the door behind her. 

Shiro slumped into a chair. Keith patted him on his back. “Have you eaten?” Shiro asked, looking at the bowl. 

“Have you?” Keith asked. Shiro shrugged. Keith passed the cereal to him, “Eat. You’ll regret it if you don’t.”

The foster brothers ate breakfast in silence. Keith wanted to say something to ease the tension, but he’d run out of comforting words. As soon as Shiro was done, he got up, “I’m going to go look for some apartments online,” He said.

“Are you sure?” Keith said, “That could wait, don’t you think?”

“I need,” Shiro sighed as he turned to go to his room, “I need something to do.”

Keith put the dishes away and went upstairs, putting his ear on the door to see if Lance was done with his calls. “See you guys later.” He heard Lance’s voice inside, “Bye.”

He heard the click of the phone turning off, and knocked on the door. “Come in.” Lance said. He stepped inside. Lance was sitting on the bed, a couple of his suitcases pulled out, though empty. He tried to smile up at Keith, “That was Hunk and Pidge. They promised to come by later, to see me off.”

Keith nodded as Lance got up. “I guess I better get started, huh?” He reached for the photo of his family and put it in his bag. Keith walked up and grabbed some of his clothes, starting to fold them, silently. 

They worked slow, as though if they made it last, it would put it off. Keith decided to try cleaning up some of his own piles of laundry while they were at it, so they didn’t accidentally pack any of Keith’s clothes. There was something on the floor he went to go pick up. 

Lance looked over as Keith let out a laugh. Keith, smiling, lifted up his headphones, buried in a piled of his laundry. Lance snorted, “See? Told you I didn’t take them.”

“Congratulations,” Keith said, “You were right…again.” 

Lance frowned, “Again?”

“The fireworks,” Keith said, “That’s twice now you were right.” 

Lance halfheartedly tosses a rolled up sock at him. “I’ll have you know I’m right a lot of the time. I just choose to be wrong sometimes to make others feel better about themselves.”

Keith rolled his eyes, tossing the sock back at him. “Oh really?” They both laughed, but it faded quickly, and they were both left in an awkward silence. 

Lance, as always, was the first to break it. “Hey, you gotta promise me something, all right?” Keith turned to him, eyebrow raised. “You gotta be the best pilot the Garrison’s ever seen. Without me there to compete against you, I’m worried you’re gonna get lazy and slack off. But you gotta keep it up, all right?”

Keith’s heart broke, thinking about sitting in class without Lance beside him. He nodded, “All right. I promise.”

“I’m gonna call you,” He said, “On video just to make sure. And if I find out you’re slacking, I’ll fly all the way out here to kick your ass.”

Keith snorted. “I might intentionally now, just to see you try.” He liked the idea of Lance coming out to visit him way too much.

There was a door slam downstairs and footsteps. With no more warning than that, Hunk and Pidge burst in the room, “Lance!” Hunk cried, rushing forward to envelope him in a giant hug. Lance made a gurgling noise at being squeezed, but Keith could see him smiling, “You have to message us EVERY. DAY. Okay? And call on the weekends!” 

“Okay buddy,” Lance said, “I’ll make sure to do that, as long as you let me breath.” Hunk released him and Lance took a dramatic inhale. 

Keith jumped slightly as Pidge patted him on the back. “How are you holding up?” Pidge asked.

Keith shrugged. He wondered if this is how Shiro had felt when Keith had asked him the same thing. Pidge nodded, seeming to understand Keith without words, an impressive feat as Keith wasn’t too sure himself what he was feeling. 

The four of them packed, each remembering and telling tales of their time together in class. Keith suddenly wished he had been a part of more of those stories as he sat back and listened. But more than that, he wanted Lance to stay there, not just for creating memories, but to be with him.

The end of the day came all too soon. They loaded up Allura’s car with all the luggage they could fit. Coran was going to drive the big car, and come back for everything else later. 

Allura gave Keith another hug. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Lance hugging Shiro. 

Finally, Allura let him go to face Shiro. Keith felt like he shouldn’t watch, though he caught a moment of the two whispering something into each other’s ear. He turned instead to see Lance hugging Hunk and Pidge. Hunk was bawling and even Pidge had teared up. “Calm down, guys,” Lance said, trying to make a joke, but a waver in his voice gave him away, “You’re gonna make me ruin my perfect make up!”

Keith wasn’t entirely sure Lance was joking, but he found he didn’t care as Lance released his friends and came to face Keith. “You know, I realized something.” Lance said, “We never actually said hello to each other, way back when.” Lance put out his hand for Keith to shake, “Hi, I’m Lance.”

Keith stared at the hand, shaking. This was it, he thought. This was his last moment, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to shake his hand, hug him, kiss him or punch him. As always when he was unsure, he let his instincts take over and pulled Lance down for a hug. “Hello,” He said, his tears finally springing up in his eyes, “I’m Keith.”

Lance lightly chuckled, wrapping his arms around him. “Good to meet you, Keith.”

Lance backed away just enough to rest his forehead on Keith’s. Keith could feel his breath on him, and begged himself, just lean forward and kiss him, this was his last chance, just do it.

Before he could, Lance backed away and went to the car. Allura joined him, leaving a tearstained Shiro behind. 

Inside the car, Allura and Lance looked through the back window as Hunk, Pidge, Shiro, and Keith stood silently waving. Coran started the car and took off, driving them away, until they were out of sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END! I'm just kidding, there's two more chapters, it gets better, please don't kill me.


	8. Opportunidad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A couple of days after they leave, Lance's mother arrives, bringing an unexpected visitor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GOOD MORNING FUCKERS IT IS 2 AM AND I AM TOO EXCITED TO HEAR WHAT Y'ALL ARE GOING TO SAY ABOUT THIS CHAPTER SO I'M POSTING IT NOW

Lance had always liked the Altean Palace. It was big and white and futuristic-looking. As a kid, he enjoyed running around with Allura to find all the nooks and crannies. 

It was weird to see his childhood playmate on the throne. It was just for rehearsal, the actual coronation was in two days…the day after King Alfor’s funeral. 

Lance was playing the part of audience member/emotional support. Allura performed the fake ceremony flawlessly, and stood before the empty hall, her father’s crown sitting on her head. 

Lance thought back to when he imagined his wedding to Allura in this hall. She would be dressed much like this, and he, a Voltron Paladin like his father, would be all decked out in a Paladin’s uniform. Of course, that was never going to happen now. The wedding or the uniform. 

“I think that’s enough for today,” Allura said, waving her attendants away. They bowed and backed out of the room, until Lance and Allura were the only ones left. Allura sighed, letting her royal demeanor drop. 

Lance got up, flashing her a typical Lance smile, “You look gorgeous, your majesty.” He gave a short, courteous bow. 

Allura glared daggers at him. She took the crown off her head and put it on the ceremonial pillow. “You do that again I’ll kick your ass into next week.” She removed the cape on her shoulders and draped it over her arm. “I don’t suppose pulling an Elsa and running for the mountains is an option.”

Lance shrugs. “Depends, you have ice powers to make yourself a giant castle?”

Allura focuses her hands out, trying to create an ice crystal. Giving up, she lets her arms fall to her side. “Guess I’m stuck ruling my kingdom.”

Lance pats her on the back. “You’re gonna be a great Queen. I know it.” Allura leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder. 

“I just…” She said, sighing, “I didn’t think I’d have to be Queen for years. I was so happy just being in charge of the Voltron training.” She sighed again, “I’m not ready for this.”

Lance nodded. “Maybe not. But you tend to power through things, no matter if you’re ready or not. It’s part of your charm.” He put an arm around her shoulders. 

She smiled at him, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks, Lance.” She swallowed, “Lance, about the Garrison—“

“It’s fine.”

She paused for a moment, “I’m sorry I can’t be there for you. Maybe if I talked to your mom—“

“It’s fine,” He cut her off. “You have enough on your plate right now, okay? You don’t need to be worried about me too.”

She sighed, clearly not satisfied with that answer, but too tired to argue. The door at the end of the hall opened and Coran entered. “Oh! Pardon me,”

“It’s all right, Coran,” Allura said, lifting her head as Lance pulled back his arm, “What is it?”

“I’m actually here for Mr. McClain, as it happens,” Coran said, “You have a visitor waiting at your hotel.”

Lance sighed, “That’s probably Mom. I’ll go greet her.”

“Tell her to come find me at the wake tomorrow, I haven’t seen her in ages.” Allura said, “I think I’m going to go take a nap.” Lance nodded, saluted her farewell, and left.

As he wasn’t technically a diplomat or anyone of particular standing, Lance unfortunately did not get to stay up at the palace itself. However, Allura pulled a string or two, and Lance did get a hotel room within a few minutes walk of the palace gates. Most of his travel time was just getting out of the palace itself. 

He saw his mother waiting for him in the lobby on the couch, having a conversation with someone obscured by the centerpiece on the table, “Hola, Mama!” He called. Smiling, his mother got up and came over to hug him. He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek.

“Ay, Lance, you’ve grown taller! Who said you were allowed to do that?” She scruffled his hair, much to his annoyance. 

“Mama, I’m not THAT much taller. Maybe you’re getting shorter.” She pinched his cheek for that remark, hard. “Ah! Lo siento, lo siento! How was your flight?”

“Well, it’s funny you should ask,” She said, “The flight itself was uneventful, but the second I landed I was accosted by a young man. He said he was your friend.” She looked back to the couch where her conversation partner stood up. Lance had to blink several times to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating.

“Keith?”

*A few hours earlier, at the airport*

“Mrs. McClain?” Keith called to the woman that HAD to be Lance’s mother. God, she looked just like Lance, like, if Lance lost a few inches, changed his eye color to brown, and then had to go in disguise as a middle aged woman? This would be what he looked like. “Mrs. McClain!”

She frowned at him, “Do I know you?” She asked.

“No,” he said, the adrenaline filling his blood, “That’s…that’s kind of the point. My name is Keith Kogane, I’m friends with your son Lance.”

Her eyes went wide, “Is something wrong? Is Lance alright?”

“What?” He said, then realized what he must sound like. “No, no, Lance is fine. Well, no, he’s not fine. He’s fine physically—“ He was losing this. And after he practiced so hard on the airplane… “Lance is…well, he’s miserable, Mrs. McClain, and it’s your fault.” She blinked at him, both offended and confused. “No! That’s not what I meant. I meant…it’s Lance’s dream to be a pilot and to go out into space. He…I think he wants to be like his Dad, your husband, which, I suppose must be scary, for a mother, but.” He swallowed. “You have to know, he’s…he’s actually really responsible, and he can take care of himself. You raised him really well.” He swallowed again. “He’s…He’s smart, and kind and funny, and he’s getting way better in class, and I think he’ll be an amazing pilot someday, if you’d just let him. Um.”

Mrs. McClain was still looking at him confused, as though she wasn’t entirely sure what was happening was happening. He took the flier out of his pocket. “This…This is a dormitory that’s available at the Garrison right now. It’s near Hunk and Pidge’s dorm…I…I don’t know if Lance has told you about them, but they’re Lance’s friends, and they’re both really smart and responsible, and I have them on speed dial if you want to talk to them.” He took a breath, “And I’m—I’m responsible. I’ve already been living with Lance for this semester, so, like, we’ve gotten used to each other. I’m top of the class for the piloting program, and…and I’ve been helping Lance study. I’m a good…I’m a good person.” Now it sounded like he was bragging. Okay, deep breaths, don’t panic. He folded the flier and put it back in his pocket. “Anyway, Lance said your rule was that you wouldn’t let him room with someone you didn’t know, and, well…now you know me.”

Mrs. McClain blinked at him. He stared at her, hoping to any deities listening he looked more confident than he felt. The sounds of the airport buzzed around him, and he wondered if he should look away from staring into her eyes, because god this was getting awkward, but he didn’t dare look away, because that also felt like defeat. Finally, she swallowed, “Let’s…let’s go sit and talk, Keith Kogane. Do you know if there’s a Starbucks here?”

Keith nodded, and was grateful he had gotten in a few hours early, “This way, Mrs. McClain, um, Ma’am, um,”

“Don’t hurt yourself, niño.”

*present*

Lance clutched the flier in his hands, not believing it to be true. “Are—are you serious?”

“Your friend was quite insistent,” his mother said, “Wouldn’t let me leave the coffee shop until I said yes.”

The corner of Lance’s mouth twitched up. “Keith. Harassing my mother like that? That’s just rude.”

“I wasn’t harassing her!” Keith said, indignant, “I was just…trying to be persuasive.”

Mrs. McClain chuckled, “I was much the same when I was younger. It’s a useful skill, to always get what you want.”

Lance smiled at her, feeling tears come up to his eyes, “What do you mean ‘when you were younger?’ You get what you want even now. It’s like arguing with the sun.”

She gave him a disapproving tap on the cheek. “Yes, well, your father needed someone like that in his life. It kept him going forward.” She looked over to Keith, “I’m glad to see you have found someone in your life like that too. I’d hate to take him away.” 

Lance finally met Keith’s eyes, and could feel his eyes threatening to leak over. Keith smiled at him, so sincerely, Lance could stare at him just smiling for hours. “Lance, dear,” his mother said, pulling him out of his reverie, “I’m feeling a little jet lagged, do you have keys to our hotel room?” 

Lance nodded and pulled the key card out of his pocket, then leaned down and pulled his mother into a tight hug, “Muchas gracias, Mama. Por todo.” (Thank you, Mom. For everything.)

His mother smiled and pulled away, touching his cheek. “Esta es tu oportunidad, Lance. No la pierdas.” (This is your opportunity, Lance. Don’t waste it.)

His mother grabbed her suitcase, gave Keith a nod and made her way to the elevator, leaving Keith and Lance alone. 

Keith put his hands in his pockets. Lance handed him back the flier for the dorm room. “Why did you do this?”

Keith bit his lip, taking the flier and putting it back in his pocket. “I knew it was your dream. And you were really upset when you thought you had to quit. It’s not right for a Mom to do that to her kid.”

Lance stared at him, butterflies in his stomach. Dammit, why did Keith have to look so cute? “Is that all?”

Keith rocked back and forth on his heels, his face slightly flushed. “Well…you’re my friend.” He said, “What other motivation do I need?”

Lance looked down, trying not to be too hopeful, but feeling a strong need to know. “It’s just…the other day, out in the meadow…it seemed like you wanted to kiss me.”

Keith’s blush deepened. He turned away from Lance and muttered something under his breath. “What was that?” Lance asked.

Keith turned back. “Congratulations,” he said, “That’s the third time you were right. You should get a prize or something.”

Lance blushed. Feeling the adrenaline giving him a boost of confidence, he stepped forward, “Do I get to choose the prize?”

Keith squirmed in place, “That depends on what you choose, I suppose.”

Lance reached out and held Keith’s cheek. He looked into his eyes for confirmation. Keith fluttered his eyes closed and leaned forward, and Lance was more than pleased to meet his lips in the middle for a tender kiss.

His heart pounded in his chest as he stood there for who knows how long, his head going dizzy as Keith’s lips pressed against his, feeling Keith’s hands slip around his back to hold him closer and he lifted his other hand up to perfectly cup Keith’s beautiful stupid face.

Keith pulled back slightly, his eyes only slightly open, “Lance,” he whispered. Lance inhaled, trying to regain thought, “As much as I’d like to stand here and kiss you all day—“

“Mm, that sounds like a good plan,” Lance said, pulling him into a second kiss, “Lets do that.” 

Keith giggled and the sound was wonderful. Much to Lance’s disappointment, Keith retracted his arms and pulled Lance’s hands away from his face. “We have work to do,” He said. Lance raised an eyebrow, questioningly. “We have to undo operation Anti-Shallura.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this makes up for the angst last chapter. I may do an epilogue after this next chapter, we'll see how things go, so stay tuned!
> 
> Apologies for the spanish, its from my memories from high school. So. Yeah.


	9. The Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Lance reveal what they've done to Allura

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a note for the AU: There are more than 5 Paladins of Voltron. Like, they're still an elite piloting force, but they don't make a giant robot, they're just...like, really cool and do stuff in Space to help people out and shit.

*A few days earlier*

Keith woke up feeling miserable, and it only took opening his eyes to figure out why. Lance’s half of the room was cold and empty and…strange. 

He went downstairs to see Shiro fully dressed at the breakfast table, computer open and scrolling through apartments. “Did you sleep?” Keith asked, knowing the answer.

Shiro shrugged. “I’m fine, Keith.” Keith poured a couple of bowls of cereal (he should really learn how to make something other than cereal) and put the second bowl in front of Shiro. He sighed and reluctantly ate it up.

“You know,” Keith said, “I had a brother once that insisted if I was feeling down I’d talk about it.”

Shiro side-eyed him, crunching his cereal. “Keith, I’m—“

“I know, I know,” Keith said, “You’re perfectly fine. I mean, I can’t understand why. I’m miserable, and I didn’t lose my girlfriend.” Keith thought bitterly of Lance, but tried to set it out of his mind. 

Shiro sighed and put his spoon down, running a hand through his hair, “It’s—“ he started, but looked off to the side, thinking, “It’s not like I’m hiding anything. The situation is the situation, and no one can do anything about it and it’s no one’s fault and…” He sighed and stirred the milk around in the bowl. “I’m just going to miss her, is all.”

Keith nodded, watching him. He bit his lip, considering. “Was she…you know, the one?”

Shiro sighed. “I don’t know if I believe in all that one true love stuff. But…she made me happy. I felt comfortable around her, even when I was tired of being around people. Sometimes just her smile would be all I needed to lift my spirits, or to get lost in her eyes or…” He trailed off. “I just…I really thought for a bit there, that we would spend the rest of our lives together.”

Shiro turned back to his cereal, slowly taking a few bites. He sighed and turned back to his apartment searching. Keith watched him, unsure of what to say. Honestly, he was thinking of Lance. He wasn’t sure about the ‘wanting to spend the rest of their lives together’ bit, but the rest of it…oddly fit how he felt about Lance. And if it hurt for him…

He finished eating his cereal, and got up to clean things up. He wasn’t a neat person, but he knew Shiro wasn’t going to do it, so he may as well. It kept his mind off things anyway. 

The mailman came not long after that. Keith was always thrown off that they delivered mail on Sundays in Altea, but he gladly took it, if only so Shiro didn’t have to see any letters directed to Allura. Not that it didn’t hurt him when he saw the beauty magazine addressed to Lance. He’d have to forward that along. 

What did surprise him was a letter from Shiro’s parents, addressed to him and Shiro. He looked over his shoulder to where Shiro was still nursing his cereal. Perhaps he should look over the letter, just to make sure it didn’t have any really bad news. 

Keith sighed opening it. Shiro’s parents still wrote primarily in Japanese. Keith was doing his best to learn, but it was tricky. He focused trying to translate. There was a section about their father’s garden, questioning how Keith and Shiro’s schoolwork was going…and…something about a gift? That Shiro had asked them to send? How Shiro’s grandmother would be proud? Keith looked inside the envelope. 

No. No, this was the last straw, this was TOO unfair, to him and Shiro, and Lance and Allura. Everything was too unjust, and if there was one thing Keith hated it was things that were unjust, according to his own skewed moral compass anyway. There had to be a way to get around this. He couldn’t bring King Alfor back to life, but he could damn well unfuck the rest of their lives. 

His first call was to Pidge, because give Pidge a computer and they could do basically anything, including find Mrs. McClain’s flight information, and a phone number for Keith. That phone number was Keith’s second phone call…Mr. Montgomery’s home phone. “Hi, Mr. Montgomery. Keith Kogane.” He looked down the hall at Shiro’s head. “Yes, sir, I know, I’m sorry for calling on a Sunday, but…I have another favor to ask.”

*Present*

Allura sulked. It was hours before nightfall, but she didn’t have anything to do today, so she stayed in bed. Or, rather there was a LOT she had to do today, in preparation for the funeral, the coronation, and all the other goddamn kingdom business, but she wasn’t Queen for 2 more days, so she let her stewards deal with it. 

Sulking didn’t exactly help, but it was better than doing anything. She wished her father could tell her what to do. She wished Shiro could be there, at her side through all this. Coran was doing his best, and she was glad he was around, but it was still…too much was missing from her life. 

There was a knocking at her door. She grumbled. Wasn’t the point of being royalty that people wouldn’t bother her if she didn’t want them too. They knocked again. “Allura?” Lance asked from the other side of the door. “You in there?”

Allura sighed. Oh, Lance. He was probably there to cheer her up more. It was so like him to try and make others feel better when he himself was miserable. “Hold on a minute,” She called out. She wrapped herself in a robe and went to unlock her door. Opening it up, she was shocked when she didn’t see Lance. “Shiro?”

“Hi,” He said to her, clutching a bouquet of Altean flowers in his hand. She blinked at him, not entirely believing he was there. She looked behind him, to see Lance was actually there, his arm around Keith’s waist and the both of them smiling at her. “Can, um, can we come in?”

Blinking, she stepped aside, letting them enter. “What—what are you doing here?” She asked, closing the door behind them. 

Shiro looked to the boys, and put the flowers down on a table. “Well, the boys here have come up with a…with a plan.”

“A plan?” She said, raising her eyebrows and turning on them.

“Well, you see,” Keith said, “I pulled in a favor from Professor Montgomery. Or, well, I promised a favor TO him, more like—“

“And I called some of my Dad’s old friends who are still part of Voltron—“

“And long story short,” Keith continued, “We kinda arranged for Shiro to take his test to become a Paladin early. In a few days, actually.” 

Allura turned back to Shiro. He swallowed, smiling guiltily, “They didn’t tell me what they were planning. Keith lied and said we got an invite to the funeral.” 

Shiro glared at Keith at that part. Keith shrugged, “Pidge is apparently weirdly good at making forgeries.”

Shiro sighed, “But, when they confessed what they’d done, I said I wouldn’t do it unless you were fully onboard.”

Allura took a moment to process what she was hearing, “You…if you became a Paladin, you—“

“I would come here,” He said, stepping forward, “Live here at the Capitol, with you. Though, to be honest, if I don’t pass I think I might drop out and come here anyway because I—I—“ He took a deep breath and looked back at Keith. Keith nodded his head and motioned him onwards. Shiro took a deep breath. “When I realized…when I fully processed, that I would be going on without you…I couldn’t accept it. It didn’t feel real. Everything you’ve done with me…for me…you’ve really—“

Keith cut him off by clearing his throat. In sync, he and Lance motioned with their hands ‘come on, get on with it.’ He sighed, “Right. Well,” He reached into his pocket, “I understand if you can’t accept right now, you’re dealing with so much, and I’ll be busy too, and I suppose we haven’t been dating for all that long.” She stared at him in awe as he pulled a ring out of his pocket, “But if you feel the same way I do, I have to ask would you please—“

“Yes!” She burst out, surprising herself as much as him. She covered her mouth, trying to keep herself from screaming or crying, she wasn’t sure which. Shiro’s face brightened instantly, holding the ring out to her. She couldn’t contain her excitement though, and so she, vibrating wildly, nodded and said, “Yes, yes YES!” Running forward the quick couple of steps between them, she knocked Shiro over in an attempt to hug him. 

Laughing, she kissed his cheeks, his nose, his lips, every part of him she could reach. Finally, he held her back, sitting the both of them upright, and pulled her in for one long, slow kiss. “Are you sure?” He said softly to her, “I mean, are you really sure?”

“I may not be an expert,” Lance said, “But she seemed pretty sure.” 

Shiro smiled at him, but turned back to Allura, “It’s just…you left because you didn’t have time for a boyfriend, and I don’t want to be more stressful if you don’t—“

“Shiro,” she interrupted him, “Yes, it will be a lot of work, but I can do it if you’re beside me. I can do anything if you’re beside me.” He smiled, tears in his eyes, and he kissed her again before slipping a ring on her finger. 

She cried of happiness into his shoulder. Of course, if Lance and Keith thought she missed them kissing in celebration, then they had another thing coming, but she could deal with that later. Shiro was here, and she wouldn’t be alone, not ever again if she could help it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!! so cute. This was really fun to write.  
> I will be writing an epilogue, and I seem to be in a writing mode right now, so that should be coming soon.   
> Enjoy!


	10. Epilogue

“Stop chewing your nails,” Lance ordered Keith. 

Keith, glaring at him, spit out a shard of his nail. “It’s a nervous tick.”

“It’s damaging to your nail bed, is what it is.” He pulled a pouch out of his pocket, and out of that, pulled out a small pair of nail clippers. “Here, trim those monstrosities.

Keith stared at him. “You just…carry nail clippers around?”

“I carry essential emergency beauty supplies,” Lance says, “What, you think these good looks just come naturally?”

Keith rolled his eyes and took the nail clippers, “Pretty boy…”

“Damn right,” Lance said, trying to give him his sultry look, “Your pretty boy.”

Keith rolled his eyes again, but with a smile this time. He relented to having Lance peck him on the lips. 

“As adorable as you two are,” Allura said, “and believe me, I am ecstatic about this new development, some of us are trying to concentrate here.” Allura resumed her pacing her arms crossed tight across her chest. 

Lance leaned back on the wall as Keith fixed his nail. “You two and your stressing. It’s not going to help him.”

“Excuse you,” Allura said, glaring daggers at him, “I am concentrating on the good will of the universe and focusing it onto Shiro so that he’ll do well on his test.” She resumed pacing once more.

Keith raised an eyebrow at Lance, “Is that like…an Altean superstition-thing?”

“No,” Lance murmured, trying to keep his voice lower than what Allura could hear, “That’s just Allura being weird.”

Allura looked like she HAD heard him, but before she could chastise him again, the doors beside them opened, revealing Shiro. “I passed!” Shiro said, flushed and smiling!

Allura squealed and ran to him. More prepared this time, he braced himself for when she rammed into him, just barely managing to stay standing. “Congratulations!” Keith said, rushing forward to pat him on the back. 

Lance punched the air in jubilation, “To the newest paladin of Voltron!” He said, and they all gave a cheer, “Lets go out and celebrate! On Allura’s tab!”

Allura gave him a slap upside the head for that. Still, hand in hand with Shiro, and Lance hand in hand with Keith, they walked down to the streets of the capitol.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, that was it! This was really fun to write, and I hope to do some more chapter-long fics in the future, maybe some not-AU's.   
> Anyway! tell me what you think!   
> if any of you are curious, wanna message me or see what weird stuff I post, my tumblr is dork-empress. so. Yeah.

**Author's Note:**

> So, my typical process of writing is to finish it all up at once and then publish all the chapters together, but this time we're going the more traditional if riskier route of updating regularly. Chapter 2 will be out tomorrow, and I'm gonna try and make sure no 2 chapters are published more than a week apart. Like I said, I already have chapter 2 done, it just needs polishing, and I've started on chapter 3. So, here's hoping I don't give up.


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